Working for the Environment Agency, and how my weekend escalated somewhat…

I knew it was a bad omen on Friday morning when there was no milk for my team, sitting down sans refreshment, the door opened and the Area Manager said, “ahh, just the man I was looking for”.

A wall in the nearby town of Arundel had collapsed at 3:30am, with 3 days of spring tides and heavy rain forecast the situation was less than ideal.

I mobilised a team of engineers and contractors on an emergency contract and we hastened to the site. The collapsed wall was behind a terrace of houses on a narrow road and completely inaccessible. The River Arun is the 2nd fastest flowing river in the country, the only vessel powerful enough to hold station in the flow and fit under the bridge was several hundred miles away. This limited our repair options somewhat.

The wall is a privately owned structure, however the Environment Agency and our responding partners are tasked with protecting all of the properties from flooding now the defence was breached. We made the decision to try to stabilise the current collapse and prevent further collapse and wider flood risk.

The plan formulated was to lower flexible bags of stone into the breach, protecting the remaining material from the full force of the flow and hopefully prevent further deterioration. This would take some doing, the nearest clear road is 25m horizontally away from the breach with 3 houses in the way.

At the same time we would isolate the terrace of houses with a temporary flood defence structure enabling us to contain flood waters that flowed through the breach and immediately pump them out.

Arundel is the very definition of English Market Town, every road is awkward, tight and cars occupy every spare piece of land. We made the call that into this we needed to bring a 120tonne crane, a low loader and four tipper trucks of material. Not easy.

An event of this size mobilises a huge variety of teams from Fire & Rescue, local authorities, Police and Highways. This team work was needed to close the roads and start the extremely difficult process of persuading locals to move their cars. Nothing is harder than breaking people’s need to park near their properties, fortunately a police uniform works wonders.

After a long and stressful day in the rain we finally positioned the crane at about 4pm on Saturday with 2 hours to low tide to get the operation started. A 120tonne crane builds itself with counterweights brought to site on a low loader. It cannot however work in winds over 7.5m/s, just as the 60m jib was raised a squall came in bringing hail and wind. A waiting game started.

As if we didn’t have enough to deal with the weight of the crane caused a failure in an old water main, in itself an extremely minor issue, however, the potential for washed out ground underneath a crane does not bear thinking about. We demobilised as hastily as possible (about 2hours for a crane that size) and retreated to lick our wounds and try again. (The high winds stayed all through the low tides halting work)

The next day we started again, the low loader could not be stored on site and had to complete the awkward half hour reverse back into position. In the meantime the utility company dug out the main repaired it and installed a new isolation valve to prevent a recurrence of the same risk. We also used a different method of loading the ground.

A 120tonne crane with a 60m jib in an urban environment is quite an arresting sight. The trucks of rock waited in a nearby services, we evacuated all adjacent properties and began. The four tonne flexible bags were craned over houses and lowered into the breach. This was done via radio as the crane driver was unsighted, all guidance was done from a boat. The rock was released by an operative on the bank once the engineer confirmed it was in position. All the site was under water and in the dark at this point.

The operation continued until 2am when we considered that immediate objective had been completed. We demobilised, switched the water back on and waited. We had no way of knowing if it had been a success until the next low tide.

It turns out the engineer on the boat must have had a wasted youth in arcades because the placement could not have been better

The stabilisation bags were placed before the next high tide which peaked some 20mm below the floor level of the property.

An extraordinary and emotional 3 days. I was absolutely shattered, physically and mentally. Every single person I dealt with from the emergency services, contractors, local authorities and utilities were prepared to work long hours in appalling conditions to try to protect the local properties and residents.

To complete an operation of this complexity within 3 days shows that despite the headlines we don’t do a bad job in this country.

James

Sometimes you’re reminded this place isn’t just full of vacuous argumentative arses.

I don’t know what to say, but have a sticker!

No one should blame EA staff for the recent problems.

Spent 5 years down there, know Arundel quite well. Amazing job by you and your guys.

Interesting story and pics – thanks.

Sounds like a job well done (bit of an understatement!). Good on you and all the others folks who do this kind of thing. Thanks!

Amazing, well done.

could’ve done something about the <harrumph> “patio” and pointing on the wall there

great read. Thanks! I work for a eng. dept in a uni, do you mind if I cut and paste the text and pics to send for some colleagues who teach a flooding module to see if it’s useful to the students? Amazing how disinterested many of them are so I try and and gather as many ‘real world’ pics as possible to try and spark some interest

Now that was really intresting, from doing nothing to saving peoples homes, always nice to find out what people do in their day jobs.

Imagine what would have happened if the burst water pipe had washed out the roadway supporting the crane.

@ferals, I wrote in one handed feeding ravioli to a 1yr old, as long as you treat it as such, obviously this is the ‘short’ version. 😀

Nice work OP!

Nice work OP shame your lot don’t do much Oooop North 😉

That is awesome

Don’t suppose you have any jobs going????

Where’s the frikin Like button?

Well done Sir ( and associated gang )

Don’t suppose you have any jobs going????

chairman just got told to resign, Must have a basic knowledge og geography to apply for the job though

“proper job” Well done

Great write up, fascinating read, about a job well done.

What does

A 120tonne crane builds itself with counterweights brought to site on a low loader.

mean?

Out of interest , what happens next. Do the EA pick up the bill for permanent repairs to the property, or are you just tasked with averting the immediate danger ?
Do you have to repeat the operation to remove the bags or are the contents dispersed when the permanent repair is undertaken.

Well done to the OP and all involved. As someone else said – sometimes even ‘we’ can do a decent job.

You make us all proud OP 😆

Good job.

Don’t suppose you have any jobs going????

Not sure if they still have a hold on all recruiting unless its an essential position.

Was thinking a little lower than chairman, but beggars can’t be choosers and all that.

Like!

I know what a hanging valley is – will that do?

Thanks for the write up, excellent stuff – I’m curious what the flow rate is like on the Arun to make it the 2nd fastest in the country though? Oh and which river flows faster?

Astounding work! Everyone involved should be deservedly proud of themselves for that particular mission.
I must admit I had a bit of a chuckle looking at the first photo, which clearly shows that classic British stoicism in the face of impending disaster: the lady in the kitchen of the left-hand house calmly making a pot of tea! Priceless. 😆

What does

A 120tonne crane builds itself with counterweights brought to site on a low loader.

mean?[/quote]
The crane needs steel weights (say, 40t) to help balance the weight of the load at full capacity – these are fitted on the back opposite the jib. It would be too heavy to travel on the road with the weights on, so they are carried on a lorry. Without the weights fitted, the crane can still lift smaller amounts, so it lifts the weights off the lorry and attaches them to itself.

Well done, OP – good job and good write up.

Great write-up.

I couldn’t even follow the river Arun inland in broad daylight to find my way back to the South Downs Way, let alone dam the thing and save the town from ruin.

You didn’t say what your role was, groupie? photographer? poet laureate? official spokesman? teaboy? fluffer? titan? rain maker? soothsayer? psychic? astral healer? fisherman? chin scratcher? lollipop lady?

Oh and which river flows faster?

Is it a competition? I’m going for the Swale!

Well done OP!

Pah, the Germans would have done it in a day (joke).

Great job and a great write up and pictures. I’m often amazed by public whinging along the lines of “well, they should just fix the bridge!”. This shows a few of the complexities involved in a simple “well just put some rocks down!”.

I bet the bill for that little excercise was, er, reasuring! 😉

Would have been cheaper to just buy an old narrow boat, sink it across the gap and use a concrete pump to fill it up with concrete. Job done!

You can use that technique next time FOC by the way….. 😉

The river severn? For fastest river

Would have been cheaper to just buy an old narrow boat, sink it across the gap and use a concrete pump to fill it up with concrete. Job done!

Oh yea the EA conservationist would have a field day with that one.

Wooaah four tonnes of rocks hanging over a house 8O. Bet the residents were shaken up by the whole ordeal. Well done for the good job.

Nice read, thanks.

Good work OP. Think you’re in Worthing too? Working on an EA scheme at the moment, phosphate reduction on wastewater sites. Not quite as exciting as this but the hours aren’t so anti-social!

Fascinating, thank you.

Interesting read, thanks for posting.

I imagine the risk assessment for that lift over the houses was pretty full on!?

Good post, well done. Other than your to$$er ex boss who now has more time to spend in the Bahamas, I reckon the Environment Agency deserves a lot more credit than it gets.

Lovely job. You should get that sort of thing up on the EA website with a blog/ latest actions type of thing. Might help demonstrate the value of properly funding the EA in the long term. Plus big machinery and engineering is awesome.

James and your team great work done.

Thanks for posting this. It gives a real insight in to the why’s and how a job like this is done. I would speak a journalist to see if they would be interested in running a story maybe with the other services you were working with as hopefully it would inform those that hindered you into moving quicker next time this happens.