Sheffield Flood
The Inundation at Sheffield
«Return21st March, 1864
The scene of the flood was visited again today by many thousand people, including enormous numbers of who had come by train from distant towns. Additional bodies are found daily, but there are still about 40 unaccounted for. The district committees are labouring hard to mitigate the great distress resulting from the flood. Clothing and other assistance has already been supplied to large numbers of persons who were starving, but the immediate claims are so numerous and pressing that much remains to be done. Great efforts are being made to clear away the mud and filth left in cottages and streets; but though 100 carts are at work, and from 300 to 400 men, the streets are scarcely more passable than they were some days ago, such is the quantity of the mud thrown out of houses and cellars. Disinfectants are being freely used, fears being entertained that the effluvia from the mud, which in the warm weather is already becoming very disagreeable, will generate fevers or other contagious disease, unless the greatest precautions are used.
The cause of the bursting of the reservoir gives rise to much comment. An engineer supplies to the Sheffield Independent the following, understood to be an authoritative account of the bursting of the reservoir:
'Knowing something of the conformation of the rocks about Bradfield, and having visited the dam since the flood, I venture an opinion, which I think is the right one, of the cause of the sad disaster. In digging for the foundation of the puddle bank the contractors of the water company had to contend with great volumes of water issuing through the fissures of the rocky strata underlying the lower part of the valley. Special engine power had to be used to keep down the water, and a labour of somewhere about 12 months was required to cut off the streams and get a tolerably dry bed for the puddle bank at the depth of 60ft. Having made a good puddle wall, the company built their embankment with the soil from the sides and bottom of the valley above, thus having the strata of the open shelving rock. The puddle wall appears to have been sufficiently thick and strong. Possibly a somewhat broader foundation might have been better; but I do not in the least believe that the mere pressure on the embankment of any amount of water the dam would hold could have damaged it in the least. The complaints made of the friable character of the soil covering the puddle bank and forming the outer portion of the embankment are childish. The real cause of the bursting of the reservoir I take to be this. The rocky bottom and sides of the valley having been bared, the water in proportion to its quantity and weight found its way through the fissures of the rock into the courses of the springs which proved such a serious obstacle to the laying of the foundations of the puddle bank. As the pressure became great the water forced its way on and on until it undermined the foundations of the puddle bank, probably at last splitting it in two, and causing the crack in the top of the embankment. A remarkable circumstance to be taken into account in ascertaining the cause of the flood is that about 9 o'clock in the evening the water in the dam lowered two feet. This appears to be inexplicable except on the supposition that the water found an inlet into the rocks. The rending away of the outer half of the puddle bank would naturally let down the top of the embankment outwardly, as it was in fact let down; and the water, thus rushing over the hollow thus made, would carry away the lower part.' Continued »
