Coming to Second Chance: an extreme weather event

The Great Radworth Flood

The river runs along the west side of Radworth, and a lot of the estate sits lower than it does. Most days that does not matter. One day, after the rain has set in and will not stop, the river will come over its banks and head for the lowest streets in town. Whoever is about will get the chance to be the one who saves it.

A red-brick terraced street under a dark grey sky running downhill into brown floodwater that fills the road ahead, wheelie bins standing in it. — 01Thornyholt Boulevard runs straight down the hill and into the water. At this level 32 houses are flooded.

A woman in a green top standing on the pavement of a terraced street, looking down the road at brown floodwater filling it from kerb to kerb. — 02Somebody from the street, stood on the last dry pavement, watching it come up.

Dark floodwater pouring across low ground towards a row of red-brick houses under a storm sky, the houses reflected in the water. — 03Where the bank gives way, the river runs across the fields and in between the houses of Coalpit Court.

A contour map of the Radworth estate with street names, small red squares for houses, and a brown shape in the middle showing where floodwater settles. — 04Where the water ends up. The Radworth Bowl is the lowest ground in town, and the shape of the flood is worked out from its real ground levels, the way a flood map is.

How it will play

The rain that does not stop. It starts like any other storm: the cloud builds, the rain comes in, the thunder rolls through. This time it does not ease off, and a flood warning lands on your phone.
The river comes up. Over the next stretch of play the water climbs the banks. The riverside promenade goes under first, which is the warning sign. The real danger is a low stretch of bank upstream, near where the anglers sit.
Your chance to be the hero. Get down to that bank before it goes. The plans are for hands-on jobs, the sort real volunteers do: filling and stacking sandbags along the low stretch, and dragging away the jam of branches and fly-tipped rubbish that builds up and dams the water. Nobody makes you go. It is your call, like everything else in Oakhaven.
If the bank holds, the river peaks just short of the top, Radworth stays dry, and the town will know who to thank.
If it goes, the water pours across the fields and into the Radworth Bowl, the lowest ground in town, with the Community Centre at the bottom and over two hundred houses round the sides. Residents head for high ground at the Working Men's Club, and afterwards there is a whole estate to clean up.

Where the water goes is not painted on. It is worked out from the town's real ground levels, the way a proper flood map is, so the streets that flood are the ones that would.

More extreme weather

In the gameThunderstorms that build on the horizon, roll over the town and move away again, with lightning that only drops out of a dark cloud and thunder that arrives late. See the weather screenshots.
In the gameDownpours that soak you through. Clothes darken and dry out again, and you leave wet footprints when you come indoors.
In the gameSnow that settles. It lies on the roads, pavements and kerbs, and the traffic leaves tyre tracks through it.
ComingSlush. The snow will churn to grey slush where the cars keep going over it.
ComingBlizzards. Falling snow that drifts with the wind's speed and direction, and turns into a blizzard when it really blows.
ComingThe Great Radworth Flood, above.

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