River Brent - Notable Floods

Notable Floods

The earliest flood record is 1682.

• 1682- A very violent storm of rain, accompanied with thunder and lightning, caused a sudden flood, which did great damage to the town of Brentford. The whole place was overflown; boats rowed up and down the streets, and several houses and other buildings were carried away by the force of the waters.
• 1841- Brentford was flooded by the Brent Reservoir becoming overfull so that the overflow cut a breach in the earth dam. A wave of frothing and roaring water swept down the river's course taking all before it causing fatalities. Several were lives lost.

• 1976- In the summer of 1976 Britain experienced its worst drought since records began; with Water Companies declaring it would take six or seven years for their empty, dry reservoirs to fill again. However, in August the following year, torrential rain not only filled but overwhelmed the Brent reservoir again, forcing the sluice gate to be opened to their fullest extent. It carried on raining heavily throughout the night. Even before the river broke its banks, the drains had started to overflow with sewerage. People awoke during the night to find their homes being flooded. Commuters set for to work in the morning to find the North London streets grid-locked due to wide spread flooding of the Brent river. Trains could not run. Hundreds ended up homeless and hundreds of shops and businesses had to close to clear up the mess. Roads that were unaffected by the water and sewage were awash with the dozens and dozens of news-crews covering the mayhem.

• 2007- August saw heavy rain cause a short bout of flash flooding in Brentford and Hanwell which covered several roads and disrupted both road and rail travel.

• On 30 Nov 2009- The Environment Agency warned residents of a flooding along River Brent from Hendon to Brentford, after a day of notably heavy rain. Several premises were temporarily flooded in Brentford and Perivale.