Bob Earll

It is difficult to put all of the aspects of this massive event into context; this is an event that will dominate thinking and debate for many years to come. Some initial thoughts.

Scale of the flooding and storms – equivalent to or greater than 2007     The current series of storms have been ongoing with little respite since Dec 6th and many areas are still affected by flood warnings after almost a month.  This is posing the most significant challenge to policy and operational responses since the 2007 flooding which prompted the Pitt review and its legislative response. The series of storms, the increasing geographic spread of flood damage, and prolonged nature of the floods is equivalent to the challenges of 2007 in many ways.

Not extreme – The new normality  As the Met Office have reported (link) December was the wettest since records began. These events have been called extreme and they are but are they now becoming normal and routine? Remember the winter storm sequence of 2013-2014 that so badly affected the coast of the south-west. We seem to be very good at forgetting a whole range of major incidents that have occurred recently. Hydrographs showing flows of a metre over the highest floods on record in the north of England were stark. We seem to have great difficulty with describing new normalities – changing baselines – like this and then adapting our policies accordingly. Witness the glacial pace of recognition for the important of surface water flooding.

The review – scope and terms of reference  The Government’s initial response to the Cumbria flooding was to announce a multi-departmental review led by the department’s chief scientists. There have subsequently been many further calls from politicians and agencies for a fundamental review of the response to flooding. With so many aspects of policy and operation being called into question the terms of reference will become very important. One would hope that politicians would debate this event shortly to ensure that the terms of reference for the review meet the scale of the problem.

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