One of our regular readers contacted us to say he was concerned that no floodgates were in use on the lower riverside walk next to Harbour Street yesterday with a high tide that came onto the path in several places. It looks too like some debris was deposited beyond at least one of the two gate positions by yesterday's tide. The gates were not in position again today although the tide was obviously lower than yesterday but still lapping onto the path in places. Our correspondent feels the gates should be installed for even the slightest risk of flooding and wonders what the criteria are for deciding when to use them.
Why weren't the gates closed?
ReplyDeletecos they were left open
ReplyDeletei think the gates should have been in place it only needs two to three inches of water extra on the high tide for it to flow into harbour street
ReplyDeleteIt's a bit of a puzzle as to why the gates weren't shut, certainly on the Saturday when there was a 4.9m tide predicted there was a SEPA flood warning issued for the river Nairn that morning.
ReplyDeleteStones and debris were washed onto the car park area at the harbour and also along the promenade near to the swimming pool with the strong waves near the top of the tide.
In similar situations I've seen the council act very quickly to either tape off or clear these areas, but I didn't see anything of the sort on Saturday and attended both areas before and after high tide.
We can only be thankful that we didn't suffer from flooding, this appears to be by chance rather than good planning as had the weather been different we might well have seen the waters rise higher, much the same scenario for Sunday.
What's the point of us having flood prevention measures such as the gates if they're not used at critical times, maybe someone from the council would care to explain or one of our councillors could ask on our behalf?
Much was made of the high tides on most of the media so it's not as though this should have taken anyone by surprise