Highland Floods 27th October 2006

I'm afraid that there hasn't been much gardening in Highland this week with heavy downpours transforming the landscape across the North, turning fields and car parks into lochs and streets into rivers.

As Flood water swilled around the wheel arches of cars in Dingwall who seemed to suffer the worst, many folk were forced to evacuate in their homes as they were swamped with water, some in dinghies as the water level was four or five feet high.

Whilst the Highland capital, Inverness, escaped the worst of the weather this time around they weren't so lucky in 2002 when they were hit by flash floods.

The high amount of rainfall over the past week had taken it's toll and the ground saturated with water caused run-off from fields to cascade down embankments in a brown waterfall and create streams of water across the road several feet deep. The water also caused several landslides and trains are still not able to run.

Cars were left wallowing in a swimming pool that was once a road or drive.

Chaos ensued with roads blocked and commuters and communities were cut off whilst emergency services tried to deal with the fast rising water levels and pump the water away. There was just nowhere for the water to go. An added problem was the high tide which was due at 2pm. People struggled as some areas were also affected by power failures.

If that wasn't enough the same night high winds reaching up to 60- 80mph hit the region exacerbating the problem, trees where uprooted easily from the saturated soil. Closing any roads that weren't already blocked by landslides or water problems.