This site has now been retired. I've moved to my new site Silverknife, where you'll find new blog posts and all my latest projects and photos. These pages will remain for at least a while, as I know some of you are still looking through the archives, but I'm reposting my travel journals and many other articles on the new site. Come and check it out.
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Nearly there! God there's a lot of this...I'm going to make this an extra-long one and wrap it up in one go, I think.
Preparing to leave the Showroom Cafe out into the driving rain, I pondered my options. My brother had offered me his sofa for the night and I'd accepted, but looking out at the inundation I felt like that would be a copout. I'm preparing to go round the world with almost no resources, and I'm about to fold and have an easy night in the middle of a city turned upside-down? I'd never forgive myself. I rang him back to tell him I'd make my own arrangements, and decided to go exploring.
The city centre was largely unaffected, although definitely quiet. I wandered the streets, the downpour hammering on my hat and bouncing off my rucksack, idly wondering how waterproof my bag was and what would be the most interesting experience for the night - head back out of town and find a field to camp in? Explore through the night and kip in an alley or a doorway? Then I ran into a uniformed man - a Sea Scout leader, ironically enough - who was directing people to the Winter Gardens, where he said an evacuation centre was being set up - apparently a number of houses were either flooded or at risk and had been cleared of people. I chatted with him briefly, then walked on the way he pointed, a plan beginning to form. It struck me that the best possible way to get involved and have an experience of this weird night would be to volunteer to help out at the centre.
In the Winter Gardens I encountered a small group of security guards, who directed me to the University (back toward the station). When I arrived there, damp but excited, I was told I would have to sign in so they would have my details on record. Orange-vested people (mostly local councillors from what I gathered, and some WRVS ladies) were bustling back and forth with forms and clipboards, getting everyone in line. I filled out the form giving my details, person to contact in case of (further) emergency, baggage details etc., queued to be given a numbered sticker, and was told to go and sit in the cafe. Here bedraggled and frustrated citizens and travellers lined up for simple but good hot food on paper plates (I had eaten earlier), coffee and tea, and to wait for news.
At intervals a supervisor would come through and give out the latest news, mostly bad - the routes in and out of town were basically all closed now, taxis were disappearing from the streets. Up to 1/8 of the city was at risk from flooding, more houses were being evacuated. There was some discussion with the bus and train companies, but no prospect of services in the near future. Mats were being made up in the hall downstairs. Whenever they came by I asked to be given something to do, but they seemed unable to use me. I volunteered to do anything, clean up, make up mats, go back out on the street and point people to the centre - they just asked me to wait where I was. I asked the WRVS ladies if I could take a shift making tea - nothing. I asked the kitchen staff if I could carry stuff, wash up pots, collect up rubbish - nothing. It seemed like an extra pair of hands had to be of use somewhere, but no-one seeemed able to use me.
In the end, frustrated sitting around for an hour and certainly not wanting to take a bed that someone else could use when I was well-waterproofed and equipped with a mat of my own, I signed out and went back into town to see if I could get down and see the flooding itself, maybe get some photos. I knew nothing of Sheffield geography, so I literally just followed any road that led downhill. The town centre was almost deserted except for the scattered lines of evacuees, and everywhere the streets flowed with water from overloaded drains.
Eventually, after a few false turns, I came to an intersection (looking across Lady's Bridge onto the Wicker) where the street was closed off and police officers where talking to a small group of presumably disposessed people - they were all in light clothes, and looking or pointing longingly down the closed street to where water could be seen covering the street side to side. Unable to go further and seeing that the Wicker seemed to be the centre of the most seriously flooded stretch, I cut east along Castlegate and circled the flooded area.
There was a yard which would have taken me closer, but I was pointed away from it by another officer, so I kept my distance and circled further along the side of a bridge which ran parallel to the Wicker. Finally I could see along the A61 under the bridge into the flooded area, and here were lined up two ambulances, several police units and a mountain rescue van, with the team gathered around it. I spoke to the officers, and was informed that helicopters were lifting people out of the flooded area. Again it was impossible to get closer, so I doubled back and got up on the parking area of the Hotel Bristol, which looked down on the flooded stretch and the rescue operations.
Looking down from this vantage I could get a long shot with my Gorilla Pod of the water pouring through the streets of the affected area. I talked to a Systems Manager who was staying in the hotel with some colleagues, and who had come up as I had to get a better vantage point. He was as stunned as I was by the scale of the disruption, and explained how this just wasn't supposed to happen in Sheffield, since the town (famously) sat on seven hills and was so high above sea level. He returned to the bar, and I went back the other way to explore the limits of the flooding in the other direction.
Passing the end of Lady's Bridge and carrying on in the other direction on Bridge Street, for some reason there was no police presence or cordoning, and it was possible to walk right up to the flooded areas. The effect was remarkable, and made the power of the flood seem real for the first time. Here the water washed around the wheels of cars, cut roads in half, filled the basement access stairs of office blocks. Suddenly distant but interesting news of a disaster became an immediate and real alteration of the rules of normality.
At one point a road led out into endless brown water between the blocks, the pavement on one side stretching out some way, and two men were standing out at the end just looking out over it and talking on their cellphones, presumably to someone trapped on the other side. I walked on, and having passed the flooded area (and reaching my last set of camera batteries) I turned back into town. It was gone midnight when I came back into the city centre, and almost totally silent - even the refugees were no longer evident.
Coming back to the Winter Gardens I found them dark and closed. The University, however, was still buzzing with life, and I was told that that centre was now full, and the City Hall had been opened as a secondary evacuation centre. When I got there a fair number of people were still trooping in, and I had high hopes of an opportunity to volunteer there. But again when I asked they had no use for me - the centre was well-staffed by council workers and police, and had relatively few refugees anyway. Concluding that there wasn't much I could contribute I made a mug of green tea, had a (much needed) slice of pizza from one of the boxes which were constantly circulating, and finally fell asleep in an unused corner with my head on my rucksack.
I woke at 7, a bit stiff but rested, signed out and headed straight for the station through a fresh but still-grey morning. The station had been re-opened, but there were still no trains running south. There were, however, I was told, trains running from Manchester into London, so I took a chance and hopped the next Manchester train. At Manchester Picadilly I was overjoyed to find trains running into Euston, and after a very quick phone call to my parents to let them know I was alright and moving I was finally heading south. The journey was smooth but long, the hardest part lugging my gear from Euston to St. Pancras with legs chafing in my still-wet jeans and the last of my strength draining out of my shoulders. But after over 5 hours of travel (normally a less than 2-hour journey) I joyfully disembarked in Bedford station. Home for possibly the most satisfying bath of my life, and my post of Tuesday.
The full set of flooding photos can be seen on this page.
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