News, Local history and Thanet issues from Michael's Bookshop in Ramsgate see www.michaelsbookshop.com I publish over 200 books about the history of this area click here to look at them.
There has been some suggestion that the sea wouldn’t be able to lift the cobbles in a storm so here is a picture of what it did in 1978 this is, was the harbour wall at about 7 meters above the standard for measuring sea level (oddly enough low tide at Newlyn) the cobles and slabs that they are putting down are next to the same sea with no beach there at high tide and are 5.8 meters above ODN or more than a meter lower than the damage shown.
Comments, since I started writing this blog in 2007 the way the internet works has changed a lot, comments and dialogue here were once viable in an open and anonymous sense. Now if you comment here I will only allow the comment if it seems to make sense and be related to what the post is about. I link the majority of my posts to the main local Facebook groups and to my Facebook account, “Michael Child” I guess the main Ramsgate Facebook group is We Love Ramsgate. For the most part the comments and dialogue related to the posts here goes on there. As for the rest of it, well this blog handles images better than Facebook, which is why I don’t post directly to my Facebook account, although if I take a lot of photos I am so lazy that I paste them directly from my camera card to my bookshop website and put a link on this blog.
The suggestion was never that the sea couldn't lift the cobbles in extreme circumstances. I merely questioned that the damage would somehow be localised on the promenade. And I continue to question the hypothesis that these cobbles would be turned into "dangerous projectiles" any more than the roof slates on an average house would be. More to the point would be who or what they would actually hit. If someone wants to go for a genteel stroll in the middle of a storm of that magnitude, I hardly think we can blame the council if they get mullered by a flying chunk of concrete.
ReplyDeleteIf we continually base our construction decisions on worst case weather scenarios, we'd be living underground.
I'm largely sympathetic to some of your concerns over the development, but this seems like a reactionary stance for no real reason. Cobblers, to coin a phrase.
By the way, as you asked, my own blog can be located at http://ramsgaterants.blogspot.com/.
ReplyDeleteJethro I am not talking about a stroll here I am talking about people trying to escape from the building in a major storm via Augusta stairs. Suppose for instance the Royal Victoria Pavilion collapses into the other end of the building. Remember the only thing that stopped this from happening in 1953 was the huge beach that built up on the WW2 defences and was subsequently used by the council for the infill for building Port Ramsgate. So there is no escape onto the cliff top, How else would they get out I wrote to the councillor involved asking him to put the sand dredged from the harbour in front of the pavilion to protect it, he didn’t even bother to reply to me.
ReplyDeleteJethro thanks I have put a link on my sidebar and will eventually put it on my website
ReplyDeleteMy post in March showed what the sea can do to lumps of rock when it has a mind to - a lump this size flying or rolling against a support pillar would wake up most of the residents in the building with a start, I think...
ReplyDeletehttp://zumiweb.blogspot.com/2008/03/storms-now-thats-storm.html
Pretty convincing Zumi
ReplyDeleteGod help us if TDC has the same blinkered and ignorant view as Jethro, Michael.
ReplyDeleteYour pictures and Zumi's illustrate quite simply the forces at play in a storm. I am not a scientific chap but if a litre of the oldy briny has a mass of 1kg and a large wave comes in over at just 5mph with a 30m frontage at 1m high and 2m wide, we have 60 metric tonnes of water hitting what is in the way at 5mph. Shakes buildings? If this happens for two hours with a wave frequency of 5 to the minute, the building gets hit 600 times with 60 tonnes of water. To stand this battering it needs to be a strong building and it would be safer to evacuate its residents as a precaution, no matter how strongly it was constructed.
Even I can see that Jethro, can't you?
Bertie the frontage is 125 meters god knows
ReplyDeleteYes Bertie. IF there were a storm of that magnitude, IF the cobbles were torn forcibly from the promenade despite them being what looks like between 10 and 30 feet from the edge nearest the sea, IF the buildings had not been constructed in a way to deal with such an eventuality, IF the residents had to be evacuated in the middle of the storm (for some reason), IF they had to use Augusta stairs, IF the force of the storm turned the cobbles into dangerous projectiles and IF people were somehow hurt by them it would be an awful disaster.
ReplyDeleteFrom Zumi's photo, it's interesting to note that the evil Jersey cobbles remained thankfully intact and it was in fact chunks of the sea/harbour wall that were chucked at the carelessly placed shelter (incidentally constructed of wood, still standing, and far closer to the sea than the proposed Pleasurama development). This is the same (equivalent) harbour wall shown in Michael's picture from 1978, and the same harbour wall that would be there regardless of the work being carried out to pave the area.
So if your concerns are for safety, perhaps we should be petitioning TDC to remove all concrete from the walls and replace it with something less potentially "lethal" like liquorice or perhaps ham.
Meanwhile, I'll expect TDC to be cutting down all trees on the island in the event a hurricane strikes and turns one into a dangerous projectile that somehow launches at your unblinkered and enlighted head.
Michael - thanks for the linkage.
Jethro we get a storm of this magnitude about every 20 years in Ramsgate and with global warming storms are likely to occur more frequently, so its not if it’s when.
ReplyDeleteI have no argument with paving slabs and cobbles which look more attractive than concrete, but I am afraid that they are laying slabs on loose sand now right up to the edge of the sea defence within a foot from the sea, I will take some photos when I get a chance.
So it’s lay them by all means but set in concrete, my point being mostly that these people who intend to build the whole development lack the experience to produce a safe development.
I am sure that in the event of a major disaster down there, being prosecuted for cooperate manslaughter will mean any future shoreline work they produce will be safe. I would however prefer them to gain their experience elsewhere perhaps the British Virgin Islands.
This storm is not only 10 years late, but there's no evidence that I'm convinced of that it would even affect the area that's actually being cobbled, an opinion that's reinforced (if you'll excuse the pun) by the photographs rather than disproved by them.
ReplyDeleteAs I say, I'm sympathetic to your concerns about the development as a whole, but I think this the wrong pole to hoist a flag up.
Jethro I learnt to sail here see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2007/12/friggin-in-rigging.html large and small sailing boats, believe me you underestimate the danger of the sea in this area at your peril.
ReplyDeletemichael, well done with the campaign to get the dangers of this site recognised. Any buildings on the coast with rising sea levels predicted from every agency out there, this should be taken into consideration. Forgetting the people/businesses in a flood prone building, we can do without the most important building project in Ramsgate being a lame duck before its gotten out of the ground.
ReplyDeleteAnd Jethro - you are an idiot if you don't appreciate what only one wave onto the cobbles laid into sand will do. Ruin it. And then we, the taxpayers, will have to pay our idiotic council to lay it again - until another wave.......etc etc