Bad memories resurface as sea wall is breached again

STORM

- by REPORTING STAFF

Ingrid wreaked havoc in seaside towns across the south coast, breaching the sea wall again at Dawlish and washing away part of Teignmouth's Victorian pier.Then just yesterday another named storm, Chandra, dumped up to 80mm of rain across Dartmoor, Exeter and East Devon, with a severe danger to life flood warning at Ottery St Mary on the River Otter.

Ingrid battered the coast on Friday and Saturday and the combination of high tides and 60mph winds reduced a section of the sea wall at Dawlish to rubble, catapaulting huge blocks of masonry onto the train tracks at Sea Lawn Terrace.

Network Rail said the sea wall had collapsed in two places, but not at any of the sections rebuilt after Storm Petra early in February 2014 left 80 metres of the railway dangling in midair and cut off rail links to the South West for eight weeks and resulted in a rebuilding programme that cost more than £100 million to shore up the line.