Yes, Hugo. I agree. The same thing, only worse, happened in Towyn. Basically the sea wall went down, the sea water poured into the village, went around a quarter mile inland and met an obstacle.
Around about 10 years before the water people were concerned about possible flooding in K bay and Towyn. But they were thinking about rain water falling around Llanfair Tel Herne etc which found its way to the sea via I think its called the
A
fon Gele. This peaceful stream winds its way from the middle of Abergele heads half mile inland to Towyn, then onto K Bay until eventually it reached the Clwyd river about a quarter of a lie inland from the Foryd bridge.
So what did they do? They built I think its called a bund the whole way from the Clwyd all the way to Abergele. Its like a high pile of stones and soil piled up to an exact height above sea level. To get the soil they dragged it from the north side of this bund, thereby making a nice large area of low land in which the rain water could have waited, like a resoviour, until the tide went out. So millions of gallons of rain water were safely held for a few hours, the river went down, the sluice gates opened, the rain water went into the river and everybody was happy. Brilliant.
But, but, but. No-one thought of the water coming from the other direction.
So the seawater swept inland. After flooding Towyn it came to a very large surface ditch which stretches from the Abergele side of Towyn, again into the Foryd. Because its not far from the blue bridge it has a pumping station to assist the flow into the river. Powered by electric. The pumping station was soon flooded, all the fuses blew and pumping stopped. For about five days. This ditch, although its very long, deep and wide was no match. I myself saw this level rising as all the water surrounding the bungalows reached it. Took probably around half an hour and it was full, to the brim. So the sea water carried on charging inland and came up to the Afon Gele. But it couldn't get in because of the high, strong bund. So it just sat there, spread into Kinmel Bay, not far off a mile inland, and then over the next two days levelled itself out until it was just short of the A55 behind Pension.
I will never forgive myself for not having a camera. It was comical looking along the top of this bund from Gors Road in Towyn. To the left there were hundreds, maybe thousands of houses, shops, caravans etc with four feet of water (Hugo it got deeper as you went inland. Gors road has a slight incline downward) And to the right, about 20 feet down was a little gentle stream meandering towards the sea. There had been no rain for the previous couple of weeks.