Three Towns Forum

The Local => Ask a Local => Topic started by: mondie on April 01, 2018, 10:56:37 pm

Title: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: mondie on April 01, 2018, 10:56:37 pm
We moved to the area last year and have come to hear about the floods of 1992 when the town was flooded, presumably by a combination of a king tide and weather conditions coinciding. There doesn't appear to be much information or any photos on the net about this flood so I was hoping to hear from locals who lived through that day. How bad was it and what combination of factors caused it? As we grow keener on Llandudno and start to look at houses this is something we have wondered more about lately. Certainly, insurances are damn expensive presumably from a real or perceived risk.

Incidentally, just today I was chatting with my wife about buying a house on the side of the Orme so we had a bit of elevation when this came up in a search  :o

https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/1993-great-orme-floods-video-12431592 (https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/1993-great-orme-floods-video-12431592)

The £7bn tidal project that was featured in this paper raises the prospect of the MSL rising 1-2m in the next 100 yrs, if true the town could soon be below sea level necessitating some very expensive sea defences.

Cheers,
Simon
Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: Bri Roberts on April 02, 2018, 03:51:03 am
It was on the 10 June 1993 and some of us will never forget our experience.

Do a search on here for ‘The Great Flood’ for further information.

Here is a video clip.

https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/1993-great-orme-floods-video-12431592 (https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/1993-great-orme-floods-video-12431592)
Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 10 June 1993.
Post by: Bri Roberts on April 02, 2018, 07:15:38 am
This is the view, mondie, when I arrived teatime at Llandudno Junction Railway Station.

Amazing how this disaster will soon be 25 years old.
Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: Ian on April 02, 2018, 08:42:43 am
The cause was primarily exceptionally heavy downpour from a storm cell over Llandudno, which spewed roughly 4.5" of water in two hours and poor design of the Marine Drive around the Orme, which had no storm drain-type gaps to allow exceptional rainfall to pour through and into the sea.  I was hit just as I attempted to drive up to a friend's place on Llys Helig and the road was simply funnelling immense quantities of water along with a lot of debris into Llandudno. There was a fire engine, with the water rising steadily above its wheel arches, with the fire crew sitting on the top parked at the Paddling pool, where a pumping station had apparently succumbed to the water inflow. I'd also had to rescue my wife who'd been in a hairdresser's in Garden St, where the water had risen up the glass door, exerting so much pressure on it that the door couldn't be opened until a fireman, armed with an axe, opted for the easy option.  Certainly sticks in the memory.
Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: mondie on April 02, 2018, 10:57:08 am
Thanks for the reply  $good$

Was there only one flood due to extreme rainfall and not sea/tide conditions? I must have caught the wrong end of the stick on that one. Seems like the kind of event that could happen anywhere if you were unlucky, I wonder why we get penalised so hard on property insurance. I had assumed it was due to my wrong version of events, thanks for the clarification Ian & Bri.

Cheers
Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: Ian on April 02, 2018, 11:02:06 am
I believe that in days of yore the Great Orme became an island from time to time. But this was just down to a torrential downpour.
Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: SteveH on April 02, 2018, 11:29:50 am
Was there only one flood due to extreme rainfall and not sea/tide conditions? I must have caught the wrong end of the stick on that one. Seems like the kind of event that could happen anywhere if you were unlucky, I wonder why we get penalised so hard on property insurance. I had assumed it was due to my wrong version of events, thanks for the clarification Ian & Bri.
Cheers

We have the same trouble with insurance, when buying our house it was pointed out that we are in a risk area, I believe that flood risk is now part of the solicitors search when buying a house.

This link might help you.....   type in your postcode    (you will like this.....not a lot)   ;)

http://conwyfloodmap.hrwallingford.co.uk/#HowToUse (http://conwyfloodmap.hrwallingford.co.uk/#HowToUse)
Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: Nemesis on April 02, 2018, 12:00:18 pm
I have in my possession a booklet called 'Once Upon A Nimbus' written by local people about their experiences the night of the flood. Where it would be obtainable from I do not know, mine was given to me by a neighbour, but perhaps the library might have a copy.
Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: squigglev2 on April 02, 2018, 12:12:24 pm
Seems like the kind of event that could happen anywhere if you were unlucky,
I had an email exchange with a brother that touched on that a couple of months ago.  His view was that where he is, a little north of Brisbane, a downpour like the one that hit Llanduno would not be considered exceptional (and presumably, they have systems to cope) but it would be an awful lot of water in a short time by UK standards...

As for us and the flood, we were safely in one of the higher points of Bryn Pydew.  My mother did get her car stuck on Queens Road, I think near the North Wales Medical Centre though.

Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: mondie on April 02, 2018, 01:00:35 pm
Was there only one flood due to extreme rainfall and not sea/tide conditions? I must have caught the wrong end of the stick on that one. Seems like the kind of event that could happen anywhere if you were unlucky, I wonder why we get penalised so hard on property insurance. I had assumed it was due to my wrong version of events, thanks for the clarification Ian & Bri.
Cheers

We have the same trouble with insurance, when buying our house it was pointed out that we are in a risk area, I believe that flood risk is now part of the solicitors search when buying a house.

This link might help you.....   type in your postcode    (you will like this.....not a lot)   ;)

http://conwyfloodmap.hrwallingford.co.uk/#HowToUse (http://conwyfloodmap.hrwallingford.co.uk/#HowToUse)

That is a very useful link thanks, Steve. It confirms that we are indeed renting a property in the 2nd most at risk zone  'Floods in 1-20 and 1-50 years'. When you start to eliminate parts of the town that has a risk at '1 in 500 to 1 in 1000 years', you aren't left with much really.

It would be interesting to understand how the water table under the town works and how it may be affected by rising sea levels and in turn, the flood map in coming decades.

Thanks for the helpful replys :)
Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 10 June 1993.
Post by: Hugo on April 02, 2018, 04:48:01 pm
This is the view, mondie, when I arrived teatime at Llandudno Junction Railway Station.

Amazing how this disaster will soon be 25 years old.

That looked pretty grim Bri, how on earth did you get home from there?        I talked to a guy called Phil who owned the newsagents across the road on the corner of Broad Street and he was trapped in the building and the water was rising in the shop higher than outside the building.  Luckily an intervention by a passer by saved him and it was similar to the ordeal that Ian's wife had on that same day.  It must have been extremely frightening for the pair of them
Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: Bri Roberts on April 02, 2018, 05:59:41 pm
David M Williams of Llandudno Fire Service put me in a large rowing boat over to the Station Hotel from where I hitched a lift off Jeff Dodd, the Rubbish Removal Man, to the top of Conway Road in CyD and waded from there.

I did a video of the event which CCBC asked to copy for their archives.
Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: Hugo on April 02, 2018, 06:19:55 pm
Thanks Bri,  that's a day you'll never ever forget.       
Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: Michael on April 03, 2018, 08:33:46 pm
 I wasn't involved in this flood although I was very very much involved in the far more serious Towyn/Kinmel Bay flood two years before. However there was a bit of warning before the Llandudno. Not certain but I think it was on a Thursday evening. In those days I used to drive a coach carrying mainly mature ladies from Rhyl to Conwy to play bingo. Bear in mind that to these ladies bingo was an absolute essential of life. Nothing would stop them. But on this wednesday there was a most uncanny feeling in the air around Conwy, difficult to explain. I suppose the closest would be to compare it to the feeling before a thunder storm, only worse. This was 24 hours before the storm came. Several of the ladies stated they were not coming on the next night because they had this feeling . Were they all psychic or was there really something in the air?




Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: squigglev2 on April 03, 2018, 08:41:26 pm
Interesting ormegolf.  While I do believe that one can feel an event like a thunderstorm is in the air, I can't actually think of anyone I knew feeling something was up preceding this event.  That of course is not to in anyway argue with what you witnessed.
Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: Michael on April 06, 2018, 06:25:54 pm
I agree. It was very strange. One thing was the state of the sky over llandudno 24 hours before. Definitely similar to the state of the sky before a thunder storm. Like sudden movements in clouds for no apparent reason.
  Of course the towyn flood was completely different. Here there was gale force winds nonstop day and night from the northwest. Four days before the sea wall came down you could hardly stand up in the wind. That caused the sea surg which finally brought the sea wall down
Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: Hugo on April 06, 2018, 06:34:16 pm
When I lived in Towyn I saw the streets on the north side of the coast road flooded a few times and people were evacuated from their property in rowing boats.   It was only the camber in the main road that prevented the estates on the other side from flooding
The Towyn Flood that you've rightly described Mike flooded the other side too.    Luckily for me, I had moved home before it happened
Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: Nemesis on April 07, 2018, 01:55:18 pm
There was another more recent episode in the early 2000s when all the local drains and the pumping station packed up. The water came down from the Orme during a cloud burst and my OH and I were struggling to sweep it away down the sewer grate away from the back door. We were up to our knees in a raging torrent, but managed to avert a major problem. The  water got in through air grates at the back and cut off the electricity, but in a very old house these things happen and we soon got sorted !
Incidentally my OH made a 'flood gate' to fit the back gate and if there is a heavy storm it soon gets slotted into place !
Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: Hugo on April 07, 2018, 03:24:11 pm
Mondie, here are some old photos for you of floods in Llandudno.   The first is of the West Shore before they built the original sea defence in the 1950's,   they then built another sea defence there in the 1990's and the water has now been replaced by sand
The second photo is another early one of Clonmel Street.    Parts of Llandudno are very low and even from Mostyn Street the streets go uphill slightly to the promenade.
Many properties have basements and they flood from time to time
Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: mondie on April 21, 2018, 09:19:16 pm
Those are great photos Hugo, thanks for posting them. I am starting to understand why the insurers are a little wary after all.
Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: Bri Roberts on April 22, 2018, 06:17:05 am
In my experience, insurers are more concerned when a property is located in an area which has a history of regular flooding.

What happened in Llandudno was a one-off 25 years ago and has not happened since.

Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: Hugo on April 22, 2018, 12:24:52 pm
In my experience, insurers are more concerned when a property is located in an area which has a history of regular flooding.

What happened in Llandudno was a one-off 25 years ago and has not happened since.

That's tempting fate Bri,  they said something similar about the floods in Llandudno Junction and then put some flood defences in and said that a flood would happen only once in a 100 years.
Unfortunately I think that it flooded again the following year
Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: Ian on April 22, 2018, 01:03:42 pm
In my experience, insurers are more concerned when a property is located in an area which has a history of regular flooding.

What happened in Llandudno was a one-off 25 years ago and has not happened since.

That's tempting fate Bri,  they said something similar about the floods in Llandudno Junction and then put some flood defences in and said that a flood would happen only once in a 100 years.
Unfortunately I think that it flooded again the following year

I'd make two points: the first is that probability is an interesting branch of mathematics, and, although it does, indeed, even out to the predicted outcomes over time, there's nothing within probability that says you can't have seven very bad flood years in a row. It's exactly the same as flipping a coin, where the probability of heads or tails is the same - 50/50 or 50%. However, it's often possible to land several heads in a row.

In the case of the flooding, so long as you only had a couple of events during a 200-year period, they could be in adjacent years.

The second point is that it's been long known that the incidence of extreme events will increase as global temperatures increase. We know that global temperatures have been rising steadily for some years and one interesting consequence of that for us is that our climate will become wetter and colder.

But Bayesian probability underpins the entire science of meteorology and it's been shown to work pretty well.  Insurers are supposed to work from Bayesian probability but base all their costs on statistics and hence epistemic probability.

So in short, don't bet on there being no repeat of lousy weather...
Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: Hugo on April 22, 2018, 02:52:15 pm
In effect you can never say never.      When I was in my teens many moons ago I needed to go to the toilet pretty quickly so the one in bog island was the nearest one so down the steps I ran and leapt from the last three steps straight into about a foot of water.
It was high tide in Llandudno and the water had come up through the drains.
That taught me another lesson    "look before you leap"
Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: norman08 on April 22, 2018, 04:04:27 pm
They were the days Hugo you always new when the tide was in a foot of water down there ,you'd tiptoe onto them top urinals 😂 At least they were always working not like these new ones two been out of order for weeks 😡
Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: Hugo on April 22, 2018, 04:47:04 pm
I know the ones you are talking about Norman, they were around the corner on the left and were up a step.    I just stood on that large red weighing machine that was opposite the steps down to the toilets.    ;D
Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: snowcap on April 22, 2018, 11:00:10 pm
was that a leap year Hugo?
Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: Bri Roberts on June 10, 2018, 02:37:52 am
Later today will be the 25th anniversary.

http://www.threetownsforum.co.uk/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=3949.0;attach=35428;image (http://www.threetownsforum.co.uk/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=3949.0;attach=35428;image)
Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: Bellringer on June 10, 2018, 12:25:18 pm
I still remember the flood extremely well.
The basement of the Bank in Mostyn St. I worked at, was flooded so no power. The strong room was flooded and inaccessible for several days, there must be quite a few customers whose deeds and documents still show signs of it all!
Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: Bri Roberts on June 10, 2021, 03:15:35 am
Today is the 28th Anniversary.
Title: Re: Llanduno floods of 1992/3 - who lived through them?
Post by: Hugo on June 10, 2021, 02:25:07 pm
This old footage of the floods was taken from a house at the top of Old Road near the traffic lights and shows you how powerful that water was on that day
I remember watching the floods from FFon Tom Hill in Tywyn Deganwy and seeing a VW car floating down Glan Y Mor Road and a few Kayakers taking advantage of the waters too



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlIJ3vmlcP4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlIJ3vmlcP4)