Just talking with Sheila about Fernvale’s flash flooding. She had been there the week before and spotted it as a potential flash-flooding area because it’s so flat.
Her observation from the fens in the UK is that anywhere that is very flat or marshland or has flooded in the past or reclaimed floodlands or reclaimed marshlands is liable to flood.
Water always finds its own course.
She said: Where she used to live in Mornington there were loads of ‘old wives’ tales’ – they used to be called ‘the wives of woe’. At the end of the backyards there used to be like a waterbed. When they get heavy rain it is suddenly full of water. No-one knows where it comes from. The wells used to rise and basements used to flood. They’d built over old water sources.
One of the most dangerous things to do is to build over an old water source because in times of heavy rain the water will find its way back.