On 30 October 2008, a hail storm hit Ottery St Mary; 160mm of rain fell in 3 hours, 55 properties flooded in Thorne Farm Way as torrents funnelled down Cadhay Bog stream.
The event hit national headlines. The scene was described as like "a mini Boscastle", as £5 million flood defence schemes were overwhelmed. As one resident put it:
Ottery is in the bottom of a big mixing bowl and the water has to come straight through the town to get to the River Otter.
According to the Met Office:
The floods reached 1.5m in places. Numerous calls were made to the emergency services. By 0500 Ottery was cut off and around 100 people had to be evacuated, some even had to be airlifted to safety.
There was substantial damage to roads, housing and to utilities networks.
It is estimated that the total cost of the clean-up and repairs cost about £1 million.
An Environment Agency photo of the River Otter and surrounding area shows the extent of the flooding:
Here are some other photographs; it was an event where roads became rivers, fields became canyons.
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Is it any wonder, therefore, that people are nervous about Aggregate Industries' plans to site a quarry at Straitgate – on the top of a hill above a town that has a history of flooding: ... August 1997, September 1997, September 1998, October 2005, November 2005, October 2008, July 2012 ...
Particularly when AI and its consultants neglected to mention in its Flood Risk Assessment any of the flooding caused in 2008 by the four watercourses coming from Straitgate. As we previously posted:
Despite the relief scheme, despite visits from the Environment Secretary and MP, despite being on the EA's Historic Flood Map, the historic flooding section of its Flood Risk Assessment 'forgot' to mention it was a watercourse from Straitgate that flooded 55 properties in 2008. Funny that.
