Major travel disruption on road and rail in Badenoch and Strathspey
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Torrential rains over Badenoch and Strathspey did not let up through Tuesday night and this morning (Wednesday, August 7), leading to major disruption across the area.
A steady stream of rail passengers emerged from Aviemore Station throughout the day as trains were stopped due to difficulties on the line in various stretches of the Highland main line.
Buses were brought in to help them continue on their journeys.
The was also major disruption on local roads – and pavements – not least in the village itself, where police at one stage cordoned off the underpass at the popular Butcher's Burn beauty spot beside the Vault nightclub.
Old Dalfaber Road at the other end of the underpass was totally inundated for much of the day as the heavy rains slowly subsided after one of the longest sustained rainbursts since last winter.
The day began with a call out for Badenoch firefighters to Laggan where they had to assist with pumping out a house which had been inundated after an unbroken night's rain.
Highland Council said staff have responded to several flooding incidents and landslides that occurred because of the heavy rainfall.
Roads officers attended in Carrbridge's Station Road after the River Dulnain burst its banks and flooded at two locations.
A council spokeswoman said: "One of the breeches has since receded and the edge of the road which was undermined has been coned off.
"Flood water continues to block the road at one of the locations and the road has been closed."
Several car parks in Grantown have been hit by surface water lying.
The spokeswoman said: "Gully suckers have been working in these areas and the volume of water is the contributor rather than issues with surface water drainage.
"Sandbags have been given out to several properties in the town."
Advice from received from the Met Office Public Weather Adviser is that the forecast is for the worst of the rainfall today in the Spey catchment area.
As land is becoming saturated from the rainfall over the past few days, further rainfall is more likely to contribute to flooding from watercourses.
Stuart Black, Highland Council’s Director of Development and Infrastructure said: “All available staff are responding where required. Particularly heavy rain was experienced over the Inverness and Culloden area between 11pm and 2am overnight...
“Roads were flooded due to the extreme intensity of the rainfall that produced an overwhelming volume of water which in turn mobilised and transported debris. Once the rain stopped, flood waters drained away very quickly.”
Met Office weather warnings can be found at: https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/warnings-and-advice/uk-warnings#?date=2019-07-11
Flood alerts can be found at: https://floodline.sepa.org.uk/floodupdates/ .
Advice on powercuts can be found at: https://www.ssen.co.uk/Powercuts/ETR/ .
