On the morning of 20 January 1607, huge areas of South Wales and South West England were flooded. In the wake of the Asian disaster of 2004, the disaster was thought to be a tsunami, but this has been disproved. Contemporary prints show humans clinging to trees, and with animals, struggling in the waters.
Broadsheets survive which show people and animals bobbing about in the waters, and people clinging to trees and sitting atop of buildings. People are described heading to work in the fields, running home to warn their families, of being trapped in their houses, of houses tumbling in the waters and whole towns and ships being swept away. The language was dramatic, with terms such as 'devoured', 'subsumed', and 'lost', the latter of which makes tracking the disaster extremely difficult at this distance in time.
The disaster struck when knowledge of the Biblical flood of Noah was common, so the physical impact was worsened by the belief that victims were being punished for their sins, which must have hampered their struggles to survive.
Chapters deal with surviving records of the disaster, the geology of the region, the history of flooding and how people learned to live with it, and focuses on the local areas and the wider history of land use, transport, extreme weather and flooding.
This book describes the disaster, its extent, its impact and its aftermath. It is also a warning that this disaster could happen again. Will our new gods of engineering and technology protect us from a similar fate?
