Once again we had the coincidence of exceptionally heavy, prolonged rainfall with spring tides, and once again Belfast was flooded.

Central Belfast is a city at sea level. Royal Avenue outside the Belfast Telegraph offices has an altitude of 19.5 feet above sea level, which is defined for Irish waters as meaning spring tide low water in Dublin Bay — that’s low water, mark you — and with an average tidal fall of 15 feet, it means that high water is almost up to street level.

A low pressure area tidal surge at the same time can be expected to leave the lowest streets awash. The wonder is that these floods do not occur more often.

Quite enough has already been said on the subject of the Westlink underpass fiasco, so I’ll not dwell on that, suffice to say that this is going to happen again and when it does we can expect the city’s joint sewerage/storm water drainage system to be overwhelmed to the point where untreated sewage invades the living space of householders at the lowest end of sewage lines.

Those people who report eruptions of raw sewage in and around their homes aren’t simply ‘getting their own back’ in a manner of speaking; they are also receiving unwelcome offerings from everyone else higher up in the same section of the drainage network.

For this not to happen, it would require those further back in the drainage system not to flush their waste away when there is no prospect of it reaching the treatment works until the drainage system returns to normal.

But this will never happen because nobody, from the council, the DoE or the Water Service, would dare suggest that we refrain from flushing our lavatories for a day or so and just put up with the stench.

If anyone was bold enough to make such a disgusting, preposterous suggestion, it would be dismissed or ignored and we would still flush merrily away and let it be someone else’s problem, given what a selfish lot we all are.

JOHN PHILLIPS

Belfast