The Environment Agency (EA) has launched a week of action coinciding with the anniversary of Storm Babet, where 2,150 homes were flooded across the UK. Flood defences are in their lowest state of repair since records began, described as extremely worrying by the floods minister, Emma Hardy. This warning comes after the England experienced the wettest 18 months on record. Hardy has formed a Floods Resilience Taskforce, a group bringing together local and national government expertise to coordinate flood preparation and resilience.
About 5.5 million properties in England are at risk from flooding, according to the EA. Last winter, 5,000 were flooded after a succession of storms, and a further 250,000 were protected by defences during those incidents. The EA has increased spending on flood defence maintenance and repair to £236m and carried out 216,000 checks since last winter. Pumps have been pre-emptively deployed at seven “strategic depots” in vulnerable regions around the country.
One victim, Phoenix Graham, and her husband are still living in a caravan, a year after their home was flooded following Storm Babet. Graham and her husband were forced out of their home in the village of Ruskington as the storm brought devastating flooding to communities across the UK. The couple is facing the prospect of a second Christmas out of their home. The Grahams’ home is just yards from Ruskington Beck, which became more than 3ft deep during the storm.
“The issue of flooding is a national crisis,” said Mr Graham. “It’s costing the government and everyone fortunes, England is an island and it needs a drainage system putting in that’s fit for purpose,” he added. Building work still to be completed by the Grahams includes raising their floor and converting an area of the loft into a bolthole, in case it floods again. Mrs Graham said that “living inside the caravan was like being in a drum” when it rained.
Caroline Douglass, Executive Director of Flood and Coastal Risk Management at the EA, said the country had seen an “unusually wet September”. She urged homeowners to sign up to flood warnings as part of Flood Action Week. Last winter, 876 properties were flooded during storms in Lincolnshire, and Mr & Mrs Field’s bungalow was one of the 200 homes owned by Parts Horncastle that was submerged during Storm Babet
Read the full article from The BBC here: Read More
