The state of @c0ff33a ☕️ a peaceful crowd, because Coffee has always had a peaceful crowd

Mid week, mid work and I'm back in the October/November/December zone where it was flat out just trying to keep up with the work coming in. With the weekends Storm Ciara heading out this weekend we have Storm Dennis the Menace brewing! While his winds will not be so powerful the rain will be worse - and that's a big blow to the many local areas that were flooded out last weekend - businesses, homes - it's hard to imagine the effect of having water waist height or over 1m in your property.

But it keeps happening, and for many areas local to me last weekend was a complete replication of Christmas 2015 - where exactly the same thing happened heavy rains over a short period causing rivers and canals to burst their banks - and even areas with no localised waterways suffered just because they were the lowest point from the surrounding area - heavy rain follows gravity rules and heads down to the nearest low point so if you are the dip between two hills then you are SOL as Stump Cross you see me drive through in my vlogs every week found out.

I spent four years at University studying Geography and Biology, and a large portion of my Geography degree involved this exact issue - some 20 years ago! Reduced interception and infiltration causes increased overland flow and flooding. Flood defences at the lowest point are as pointless as putting a mickey mouse plaster over a severed artery - sure it helps a little but ultimately you will bleed out and die without proper treatment of the actual problem - seal the artery or in flood terms stop rain water travelling so quickly down to the lowest point.

The real issue I consider as entirely Human convenience generated, roads, car parks and tarmac driveways we cover the land with impermeable tarmac causing all the falling water onto it to be channeled directly into streams or rivers. We remove natures own flood defences - trees whose leaves caught rain water slowing it's progress to the ground, and grassy meadows where grass or other plant types again absorb the rain and slow it's progress into the water table. Instead we cover as much of the land as we can with an impermeable tarmac road for "convenience" and keep it clear of water by making gulleys that quickly channel it into the nearest stream or river.

Flood defences are fighting a loosing battle against our own obsession for convenience, instead of trying to stop flood water entering homes and businesses at the lowest points we should be trying to stop water falling at the highest points in our lands and being instantly pushed into down hill streams and rivers. And the solution is not as difficult as could be made out, there is no reason for any tarmac road to be impermeable - regular holes throughout it's surface would allow water to flow through it instead of over it. Roads, car parks and drive ways - they do not need to be impervious surfaces water flows over - and making water run through them is far simpler and easier then flood defences. Even easier is increasing the amount of trees and grassland, plus areas left to grow wild the thicker the hedges, shrubs etc the slower rainfall enters the water table.

Aside from the cause and effect, the real issue is why throughout history building communities on floodplains has been allowed - because logically it makes no sense building where floods will obviously happen is a terrible idea. Fortunately the reasons are well documented and if you read through Wikipedia you will see in history flood plains made excellent choices for developing communities because of the access to fresh water, fertility of the land because the flooding water carried fertile soils from the river onto the land, easy transportation utilising the river and because flood plains are flat building houses was much easier.

In 2020 though really none of those reasons are valid, and while in the Summer being next to a river is lovely for a community to relax next to the babbling water - in Winter when it turns into a raging torrent that floods your house it's not so nice and realistically instead of hoping the people at the top of the hill will stop cutting down trees and turning meadows into car parks - maybe it would be simpler to join them at the top of the hill.

Last Confirmed Block Number 40,766,955 Last Aslot 40,904,312

Steemd v0.22.1





Kind thanks to Witness @enginewitty for employing his Ninja graphic design skills and producing this 🔥 banner

If you enjoyed my post don’t forget to leave an Upvote, feel free to comment on what you liked or where I can do better even. Follow @c0ff33a for regular and varied posts, photography, my weekly VLOG, posts on coffee roasting and brewing - just follow and see.

To grow your presence and following on Steemit, be active in the community Discords that offer the chance to learn, network, share and be found. The #TheRamble discord https://discord.gg/HZYzEry hosts a range of shows where you can join in and get your name shown, every Thursday there are two Pimp My Post Thursdays which are hugely popular and give you an opportunity to get your posts seen.

All photos are my own, taken with my iPhone. All my Steem posted pictures can be freely used by other Steem users in their own blog posts - all I ask is that you follow me and credit @c0ff33a linking to my post you took it from. You can also follow me on Twitter

You can view my current Witness Statistics using this tool produced by Witness @justyy

The picture to the right kindly sketched by the wonderful @bridget.art , be sure to check her incredible art out https://steemit.com/@bridget.art

The greatest challenge we face on Steem blockchain is getting our posts seen, I have always believed the simplest and best value way of doing this is by commenting on the blog posts of others, the more you engage people and interact with them the greater the chance they will visit your own blog and return the favour. Other then spending all my free time commenting on Steem blockchain posts, I also distribute coffee roasting machines and also espresso coffee machines and roast my own Speciality Coffee Range. being one of the premium coffee suppliers Yorkshire including a wide range of filter coffee sachets. Finally I have a dedicated website to my Artisan small batch roasted coffee featuring roast and post packs and super easy coffee subscriptions

Proud sponsor with @derangedcontests of @brosino , free to play and cash out Steem rewards, head to Brosino Website now and start playing.

!steemitworldmap 53.766547 lat -1.801500 long Bradford, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom. d3scr

This awesome animated Banner has been kindly been created by the wonderful @snook

The Coffee Break Discord Voice Chat Show, in @thealliance Mondays 10pm UTC hosted by @c0ff33a and @enginewitty

Don’t forget to vote for Witnesses https://steemit.com/~witnesses

You can vote for the Witness team c0ff33a and @derangedvisions if you like what we are doing for people and communities throughout the Steem blockchain - click vote for c0ff33a Witness

If you are uncertain about Witnesses and who to vote for you can vote for c0ff33a as your Witness Proxy and you will vote for the same Witnesses as I do.

If you have spare Witness votes, support other active Witnesses like @thekitchenfairy , @enginewitty and @jackmiller
@untersatz

2017 blogging, 2018 Witness, 2019 COFFEEA TOKEN