The River Aire at Kirkstall, Leeds bursts its banks, December 26, 2015. Demotix/Steve Gaunt. All rights reserved.We have been lucky with the flooding where we live, at least so far. Kirkburton is in the east Pennines a few miles out of Huddersfield and the village was on the Environment Agency’s “risk of flooding” warning for twenty-four hours on the weekend of 26-27 December. Fortunately, while the rain may have been very heavy it didn’t persist here as long as it did up on the moors, but some of the Calder Valley towns like Hebden Bridge, Mytholmroyd and Sowerby Bridge were hit appallingly badly.
Less than two weeks ago we had been at the Winterlight Festival in the centre of Sowerby Bridge and saw the fireworks display at the end of the festival, standing on the bridge over the Calder river in the middle of the town. It was a spectacular view, about fifteen feet above the river, and it was a real shock to see TV shots at the weekend of the bridge with the torrent of water almost up to the bridge deck itself.
