Boscastle Flood 2004 Essays

Submitted By olliebeyyy15
Words: 442
Pages: 2

Boscastle Flood 2004
In this piece of writing I am going to explain the causes and the effects the Boscastle flood 2004 has had of the economy, environment and socially. The Boscastle flood took place on Monday 16th August 2004 which proved to be hazardous towards the villages Boscastle and Crackington Haven. It was thought to be the worst in local memory.
Many things caused the torrential flood, for example: warm air picked up moisture from the Atlantic Ocean which travelled towards the Boscastle as prevailing winds. Upon contact with the vertical coast, these winds experienced a strong up-drafting force thus causing internal moisture to reach the atmosphere, and consequently cool as a string of storm clouds, this caused 89 mm (3.5 inches) of rain was in 60 minutes, and later on 185 mm (7 inches) of rain fell over the high ground of Boscastle, there was Rain gauges, The ground was already saturated due to the previous two weeks, The drainage basin had many steep slopes, and has areas of impermeable slate causing rapid surface run off, and the flooding coincided with a high tide, making the impact worse. As these causes were so bad it affected loads of people.
The economy had a massive impact due to this flood as many people needed to rebuild their properties which were probably located at the bottom of a hill or at the end of the river; this would have been because the water would flow and build up to their house. Another reason is that as said above many there was loads of rain so that would build on to the river overflow too. The government has paid out money to put a defence scheme in (7.5 Million); most things have been raised like car parks etc. And