The swishing of the car’s windscreen wipers signaled that our trip to Spurn Point was going to be a real test for our wet weather gear.
Having offered to help Yorkshire Wildlife Trust with their big clean-up after the recent flooding, a handful of staff and volunteers from Bempton Cliffs headed for the peninsula assuming that there’d be no rain left to fall. How wrong can you be?
Spurn is roughly a 90 minute drive from Bempton and the rain was still lashing down as we pulled into the public car park.
Ignoring the ‘road closed’ sign, we trekked to the visitor reception point and took refuge in a little two-bedroomed cottage with a common room and a kitchen at the rear – one of the old Ministry of Defence buildings left over from the days when the area was a coastal fort. We were met by Adam, of YWT, who showed us some of the flood damage before explaining our ‘challenge’.
A portion of the reserve was still under water – and possibly would be for some considerable time. A sizeable stretch of the road, installed only last year, had been ripped up and was now just a pile of rubble. It looked less like a beauty spot and more like a bomb site.
The flooding wasn’t a surprise but the extent of it was. YWT were aware of the approaching bad weather and a high tide was expected. Sandbags were put in place and delivered to locals in an attempt to limit the damage. Vehicles were moved to higher ground. People in nearby villages were evacuated. However, when the tide eventually came in it was 2 metres above the predicted level, making it 9 metres high at its peak. Dunes were washed away. Land simply disappeared. All but a sliver of sand on the arm of the spurn was overwhelmed.
Mountains of debris still dotted the landscape. The surging sea had washed up tyres, plastic bottles and even fridges. A dumper truck tipped yet more rubbish onto a growing pile.
The YWT team reckoned over 1000 black bin liners had been filled by members of the public who’d turned up to litter-pick in the aftermath of the devastation.
Discovered amongst the flotsam and jetsam was what we believed to be a porpoise skull. But as no-one had seen one before so we couldn’t be sure.
After the brief tour, we rolled-up our sleeves and got stuck in. A couple of the Bempton contingent were given the task of power-washing mud covered paths; the rest of the team were taken to a large storage shed that had become an indoor lake during the deluge. Our task was to clear the layer of mud left of the floor after the water had receded. Nice.
For those of us more used to wielding a pen than a shovel, it was hard going. Not to mention more than a bit messy. We heaved around all sorts of stuff – from a massive bale of sheep’s wool to some rather appropriate signage – then scraped away the muddy residue. Once the place was clean, we put everything we’d dragged out back inside.
Our aching arms and backs were put to an even bigger test when we helped haul one of the massive telegraph poles that had floated away from its home back where it belonged. Believe me, they’re heavier than they look.
Eventually, the last pallet was returned to the stack and the final plank lifted onto to the wood pile and it was time for a cuppa before the long drive home.
There's still lots of work to be done to get the reserve up and running again but we we're happy to have done our bit to help get it back on track.