Torrent

The river was barely more than a trickle yesterday but after last night's rain today it is a torrent.  The department was put on vigilance orange and I nearly turned back on the way to a meeting last night, so hard was the rain. The rain stopped this morning but in 1940 it continued for three days and swept away all the period hotels by the river. It was after this that the river was canalised in the  central section of the village.  Even now attention must be paid to the state of the river bed as, if trees and bushes grow and then are uprooted, they can be swept downstream and form a dam which, when it bursts, can have a devastating effect downstream.