Bad flooding at First Tower, Gloucester Street, Victoria Ave. tonight

[danrok]

Just watching Channel Report, and there's been quite a lot of flooding from First Tower along to Esplanade area.  The Opera House was flooded out. Looks like the sea wall on Victoria Avenue is damaged.

There'll be another high tide tomorrow morning...

[Jason the Maverick]

I live in town and not so far away from the flooding, but this is unbelievable.

Question is, how much will it cost to fix the wall?
A 200-metre section of Jersey's main sea defence along Victoria Avenue was destroyed tonight (Monday) opposite lower park.

Huge capping stones were tossed into the road. The rest of the wall was reduced to rubble.

The breach of the wall led to extensive flooding in St Helier.

At one time the water was flowing half way up Gloucester Street.

In St Helier the sea flooded along the Esplanade dual carriageway. Route de la Liberation became a water way.

The sea surged into Gloucester Street, Payn Street and round to Seaton Place.

There was extensive flooding of property. The Opera House was an early victim. The foyer and basement bar were quickly inundated. Staff worked late into the night mopping up.

[AHITS]

I think this could be a sign from God that the sunken road and Waterfront finance district are sinful plans. Maybe Jihad is in order? Let loose the dogs of war!

Erm...anyone know the phone number for the T.A.? 

[David Rotherham]

The two most likely consequences of rising global CO2 levels are rising sea levels and stormier weather. Welcome to the future!
Seriously, we need to stop building on low coastal ground, not that there is much left that is not already built on.

[Malachi]

Fixing the wall shouldn't cost an 'enormous' amount of money; capping stones have been dislodged before, but probably not on this scale. It is alarming though.

The global warming/sea level thing is relevant, but only in the sense that this is more likely to happen (and do more damage) if more energy is trapped in global weather systems because of rising carbon dioxide levels (= more chaotic/extreme weather) and sea levels continue to rise. Storms like this are not unusual (in a statistical sense), but it looks like they become more usual, sadly.

[en830]

Can we pin this on Walker ?

[verystandrew]

Did selected S Coast real estate prices just take a dive? Such storms will render some currently very desirable dwellings uninhabitable within 50 years IMVHO. It's not just UK river flood plains & Goose Green Marshes...

VStA

[Jason the Maverick]

I bet the insurance premiums for property along the avenue is going to rise now.

[danrok]

Did selected S Coast real estate prices just take a dive? Such storms will render some currently very desirable dwellings uninhabitable within 50 years IMVHO. It's not just UK river flood plains & Goose Green Marshes...

VStA

It's only a few properties which have suffered minimal flooding. Fortunately, the water drains away pretty quick once the tide goes down. River floods are far worse, with homes sitting in stagnant water for long periods of time.

[Al]

It's only a few properties which have suffered minimal flooding.

Seems pretty significant to me - just back from lunch with a friend who talked of valuable archived legal documents being damaged or destroyed - potentially thousands of them. It may only be a few stones gone from the top of the sea wall but Gloucester Street and Seaton Place are not meant to be underwater.
Rising sea levels/carbon dioxide/global warming may be a contributory factor - I'm, however, concerned by a few other things;
  1. Wasn't there much work done on the beach in the last couple of years in exactly that area...excavators moving large boulders and the like? Shouldn't that have helped prevent this?
  2. As someone old enough to remember St. Aubin's bay before the reclamation work began it is obvious that the flow of tidal water within the bay and the ecosystem has been altered...we have stinky green seaweed growing on the beach at Millbrook and sand dune grasses growing further round on an area that should be covered at high tide. In the JEP tonight there is talk of a 'lensing' effect. If you stand watching the waves at West Park you can see that the sea wall there is struck by both waves from the south and also by waves reflected from the side of the reclamation site. Was enough hydrological research done before we spent many years filling the reclamation site and can anything be done now to correct it?
  3. A great deal of money was spent on excavating a cavern at Snow Hill - I thought that the idea of this was somehow to minimise the risk of flooding tho' the details I remember are kinda sketchy... Can someone remind me.
  'Nuff respect, tho', to Guy de Faye for getting the problem sorted out with big sacks full of sand - the man is an organizational genius!

[danrok]

I don't think the new drainage system, which links up to the cavern, covers the whole of town. I know West Centre area has still not been sorted, and probably never will be.

Any drains which fill up with sand and mud will be rendered useless, anyhow.

Where were your friend's documents stored, in a cellar?

[Al]

The cavern took about four years to build and cost £23 million - at that price I would have hoped it stopped flooding anywhere in the island!

Yes, the documents were safely stored in a cellar!

[Chief Minister]

I thought some parts had been improved with the flooding.

[verystandrew]

"Was enough hydrological research done before we spent many years filling the reclamation site and can anything be done now to correct it?"

Last thing I knew, these people were T&TS chosen experts on our beaches & sea defences:

http://www.hrwallingford.co.uk/index.aspx

Certainly had a few £ from the SofJ over the years...

Cheers,

VStA

[AHITS]

The reclamation site certainly did alter the tides to the detriment of the immediate locality....unless of course anyone wants to believe it to have been sheer coincidence that the beach started losing sand in parallel with the growth of the site.

And I'm no expert on tidal behaviour, but surely the fact that a large chunk of beach no longer exists, and a great new land mass does, would lead to the power of the tide in the bay being redirected and focused on a much smaller area of sea defences...?