THE DAM BOOSTERS
Chinook used to shore up reservoir that is threatening town as Boris offers support
‘We don’t do panic’
‘LOOK at all these tubes. It’s like a patient in intensive care – but then I suppose that’s what this is,’ reflects Edwina Currie, surveying the view at the back of her garden above the town of Whaley Bridge.
It was this Peak District panorama which instantly persuaded the former Tory minister to buy this place several years ago.
Today, however, the view is very different. An RAF Chinook is thundering above the treeline with six sacks of rocks dangling from its belly. Each bag weighs more than a ton but the pilot tiptoes into position like a ballerina before a precision dumping operation on to the battered, hollowed out slab of concrete below.
Huge pipes stretch like giant straws along roads crammed with big red fire pumps, all furiously sucking thousands of gallons per second out of a mile-long pool of gravy-brown water.
At the centre of the drama is the spillway of the Toddbrook Reservoir, the weakest point in a ruptured wall which currently separates the 190-year-old man-made lake from the grand old mill and coal town below, not to mention the railway passing through it.
Yesterday, the battle to keep the two apart replaced Brexit as the lead item on the Government’s agenda. Downing Street convened an emergency Cobra meeting.
Last night, the gravity of the battle to save Toddbrook was underlined when the Prime Minister made a surprise flying visit.
Boris Johnson assured residents that the dam was ‘dodgy but stable’. Quite how much solace they will have derived from his assurance that ‘you will all be properly housed’ in the event of a collapse remains to be seen.
Mr Johnson was clearly disturbed to learn that some residents were still refusing to leave homes which stand in the path of a breach in the dam. ‘We’ve got to sort that out,’ he told police officers. He assured his hosts: ‘Whatever we do, we’ll make sure we rebuild it.’
Though the state of the dam remains ‘critical’, according to its owners, the Canal and River Trust, the signs are that the battle is slowly being won. Water levels are down by half a metre while the RAF has now deposited 200 tons of aggregate to counter the erosion and stabilise the spillway.
It is a sight as alarming as it is also deeply impressive, enhanced by the sheer majesty of the surrounding Peak District countryside. Think Last of the Summer Wine-meets-Hollywood disaster movie. I arrive to find frantic action in the sky and at the water’s edge while, down below, stands Whaley Bridge, a ghost town save for a few blue flashing lights and the odd snatch of officialdom in a hi-vis bib. On hills for miles around, locals and hikers cheerfully absorb this surreal sight. There is absolutely no sense of panic, no anger. They’re a stoical lot here in Derbyshire.
‘We’d never had rain quite like it so people can understand how something like this has happened,’ says David Lomax, a local councillor and a resident for 42 years.
Early yesterday morning, when he should have been celebrating his party’s by-election win, the Lib Dem councillor was round at the emergency centre in nearby Chapel-en-le-Frith to check up on evacuees.
He was surprised to find the place almost empty. Of the 1,500 souls forced out of their homes, nearly all had been taken in by family and friends. Delivery vans had come laden with supplies but most people were coping well enough under their own steam.
‘People are like that in Derbyshire. We don’t do panic,’ says Edwina Currie proudly when I drop in for a coffee.
It is a cliche to talk of the Blitz spirit but it is a apt description for Whaley Bridge. ‘I was having my tea when this policeman came to say we had to get out,’ says plumber Connor Wigg, 22, watching the Chinook from Whaley Bridge Cricket Club. ‘I thought I’ll finish my tea and have a shower. Then I went to stay at my Nan’s house. I’m not worried about the dam. They’ll sort it out.’
The cricket club will certainly have an interesting entry in the scorebook this weekend.
Today’s home match against Mottram has been cancelled – half the team cannot get home to retrieve their kit.
Though sunshine is forecast, the club records will note: ‘Rain stopped play – last week.’