W.O W.

By my crude mathematical reckoning you would expect a probability of 1 in 133 to witness a devastating natural phenomena.

To be a little more exacting, a wall of water in Yorkshire.

The coinciding of a major flood event with the then resident population of the small village in Ryedale, North Yorkshire was a piece of misfortune given this statistical data.

It happened in June 2005 but the memory and impact of the inland tsunami remains strong amongst those who still live in that village, in the same houses and wider local area.

It is a picturesque bit of God's Own County as is the romantic but justified title given to the largest administrative district in the UK.

Most travellers might not even make a note of the rather long name of the village as it is displayed on the millstone marker as theirs is a wholly different quest, namely to get a good run up to the foot of Sutton Bank and then almost freewheel all the way eastwards to the coastal attractions which include Scarborough and Whitby.

Sutton Under Whitestonecliffe is the village referring to its proximity to the huge land feature which includes Sutton Bank which has one of the steepest gradients for a main road in the country at 25% maximum and a hairpin bend to complicate matters.

I was at a nice stone built cottage during the week just at the Listed bridge over the peaceful River Rye.

The only perceived hazard in that vicinity was attempting to cross the busy trunk road from where I had parked the car to get to the front door set just behind a low boundary wall.

Prior to my visit my usual research had flagged up some horrific personal accounts and very disturbing photographs of a wall of water that had descended from high ground to the north of the village, unannounced and wreaked havoc only falling short of any fatalities or serious injury to those who happened to be in its path.

It had, all of those 14 years ago, been a Sunday in June.

The occupants of the cottage had been enjoying a typically seasonal day which was in the middle of a bit of a heatwave.

By about 4.30pm the brightness of the day was replaced by a sinister "End of Days" type darkness and in the ensuing 3 hours the skies dumped 76mm of rainfall, a monthly average on the rolling terrain.

Of course, heatwave induced torrential downpours are a common occurrence and the Met Office are skilled in tracking and predicting such events but not their potential intensity and path of destruction.

A 1 in 10,000 year event is usually of a magnitude to re-shape landscape features, irrevocably change the courses of rivers and streams and shift huge volumes of shale, gravel, rocks and vegetation. In earlier times this would have gone largely unnoticed but where the countryside is cross crossed by roads, houses and other man made features there will always be some collateral damage.

One contributing cause of the wall of water that day was attributed to a Reservoir Lake in hilly woodland just a few miles uphill of the village. Although this artificial feature, excavated in the 19th Century to provide freshwater to the nearest large town of Thirsk, was decommissioned in the years following the flood over concerns over its integrity it was subsequently cleared of any culpability. The locals still contest this analysis and blame an overflowing spillway below the reservoir dam.

The sheer volume of rainfall did overwhelm other small watercourses and this resulted in a torrent descending the contours at 80 mph.

The cottage which was the subject of my visit was fully in the path of the wall of water.

Its owners just had to stand and watch from a slightly elevated position as the 3m high flow pushed out the very substantial stone walls of their garage/ workshop, took up and removed two cars and a boat across the garden, wiped out the conservatory and washed through the whole of the ground floor of theirs and their neighbours home.

The sheer force of the wave was beyond comprehension particularly the ease with which it had demolished the stone buildings that had until that day stood up to a couple of centuries of weather and exposure to the elements.

Village spirit kicked in and the displaced residents were accommodated at the local pub until the water had subsided.

There was left a trail of rubble, waste and detritus that had to be carefully cleared in the proceeding days and weeks to allow the lengthy and costly remediation works to be carried out.

The owners of the cottage have a framed collection of photographs from that day as a reminder of the frailty and folly of human existence in the face of the unstoppable forces of nature.

They did not hesitate to stay put but then again the odds of another freakish incident on that scale appear to be in their favour, just about.