The Little Avoning Flood
In the year 1810, the banks of the dam above the town of Little Avoning in Yorkshire burst, flooding the town to the point of destruction. Residents reported a significant disturbance in the echoes within the site of the future flood in the days before the dam broke. […]
Little Avoning is considered the first modern instance of an omen, a phenomenon where echoes in a location about to face an extinction of human memory appear to change in a way that foreshadows the impending disaster. The many first-person accounts of the changes in local echoes recorded by evacuees, including a number of highly-educated persons, served as the first definitive proof that the phenomenon was not historical myth, and excited significant interest in the study.
To this day, the site of the former town is uninhabited. The settling of the ground under the buildings during the centuries of occupation caused a slight depression that has led to the development of a wetland biome where the town used to be. While it would be technically possible, if difficult, to rebuild the town on the former site, no developers have considered it a viable investment despite early advocacy from a small group of former residents. Additionally, many locals consider the site haunted by a spirit they call the “Moor Lady”, and warn that building on the site such a calamity would be courting death and further disaster.