Homeowners should replan their homes – including putting electrical sockets half way up the walls – to protect against future flooding, according to an Environment Agency boss.Sensible advice, especially if your home has been built on an ancient flood plain.
Has it gone down well?
Reader, it has not...
David Rooke, deputy chief executive of the organisation in charge of keeping flood waters at bay, came in for heavy criticism for suggesting families should take responsibility for safeguarding their properties.*sighs*
Flood victims last night questioned how they would pay for improvements – and suggested Mr Rooke should focus on preventing their homes being inundated in the first place.Or, more accurately, 'Hey, let someone else's house get flooded, not mine!'...
Some residents in York are furious at a decision to open the flood barrier protecting the city from the River Foss.
And in the village of Billington in Lancashire, the Agency told some residents they couldn't supply them with sandbags.FFS, people, these are the folks that don't bother to grit roads when snowfall is predicted (which can at least be shovelled away), why on earth do you expect them to be able to cope with excess water?
12 comments:
To a very large extent the EA, with its 200+ PR staff and almost zero engineers, is responsible for exacerbating the flood problems because of their gold plating the EU distat and putting frogs and water vole before the need to protect people, even if said people were rather unwise in their decision on where to live.
This is another case very similar to the Somerset levels where the EA and several environmental concerns put wildlife before the welfare and livelihood of the district farmers.
The problem is that watermelons will never learn from history thus forcing everyone else to repeat it ad infinitum.
All beds are to be transferred to attics, as of now.
Flood victims in Lancs, my neck of the woods, have been promised compensation and grants to repair and modify their homes against future flooding.
It makes me wonder why I bother with home insurance.
Goldfish in York are now heard saying "oh look, a sunken settee, oh look, a sunken settee" . . .
Some residents in York are furious at a decision to open the flood barrier protecting the city from the River Foss.
I live in York and even walked over to the affected areas this morning (you can probably guess that my house wasn't flooded due to some research when we bought it some 10 years ago). It's bad, really bad but the water levels are dropping off quite quickly and people are turning to the clean up operation now.
To my point, you must understand how the Foss flood barrier works. Where the Foss joins the Ouse and the Ouse is up (usually beyond the 5m point) the water from the Ouse would push back the Foss and cause levels along the Foss to rise flooding a huge area. The flood barrier stops the Ouse and the adjacent pumping station pumps the water from the Foss into the Ouse. Simple really. Unfortunately, the rainfall was so great (a months worth in 24 hours) that the pumping station was under threat of being overwhelmed, particularly the electric circuits that power it, that the decision had to made to raise the barrier, releasing the deluge from the Foss. Had the pumping station failed with the barrier closed, then there was nowhere for the Foss to go and it would have flooded an absolutely huge area making the current floods look like a minor puddle.
Some good points:
I have never seen a community come together like this. Everyone pulled out all the stops. People were donating goods, services and accommodation to all those affected. Van hire companies giving van use for free, people up all night filling sandbags. Restaurants feeding people for free. Amazing stuff.
Bad point:
Some scrotes have been burgling affected properties overnight. God help these people when their identities become known. And they will.
@Anonymous, your description only reinforces the fact that the EA and watermelons are to blame.
For a start the Ouse should be dredged all the way to where it joins the Humber ans then the Humber should be dredged all the way to the sea. Any engineer with any knowledge of what water can do to electrical switch gear would know that electricity powered pumps in a possible flood situation have to be a type that will continue to work under water and the control equipment has to be waterproof and mounted well above anticipated flood level. The problem is that the EA does not have engineers now but is staffed by political activists and PR wallahs.
Not disagreeing with you on any of those points Ivan. I was dealing with the opinion of some that the Foss flood barrier should have been left closed. Had it been so, there would have been far more damage to a greater number of properties and businesses.
Where I live, the EA's writ runs very large. They ride around in ferociously expensive Toyota Landcruisers and seem to achieve bugger all, apart from inspiring near universal contempt among those who have lived and worked on the land all their lives. This, I am reliably informed, includes many older, experienced, EA workers.
It appears to be the case that the Agency has fallen under the control of young green activists who would far rather people didn't live here at all, so that the landscape could be left untroubled.
That is certainly my impression of them.
Ivan, engineering is nowadays regarded as a "hard" subject. Hard to learn and hard to teach, thus fewer students and fewer good courses. Probably hard to get a job too, if what you say of the EA is true.
Our entire establishment is now populated by activists who, if they have degrees, are 'qualified' in PPE and PC - of a liberal left variety as propagated by Common Purpose. Heaven forbid that they should actually employ engineers, who might not promote the right dogma.
"... because of their gold plating the EU distat and putting frogs and water vole before the need to protect people, even if said people were rather unwise in their decision on where to live."
*muses* I wonder where EA official buy houses...?
"It makes me wonder why I bother with home insurance."
Is this just for houses that are unable to obtain insurance, though?
"I have never seen a community come together like this. Everyone pulled out all the stops. "
The difference, I suspect, between a proper community and the sort of 'community' often referred to be the likes of the 'Guardian' and 'Indy'...
"It appears to be the case that the Agency has fallen under the control of young green activists who would far rather people didn't live here at all, so that the landscape could be left untroubled."
That Long March through the institutions again... *sighs*
"...engineering is nowadays regarded as a "hard" subject. Hard to learn and hard to teach, thus fewer students and fewer good courses..."
And yet, I don't see flood victims crying out 'Send us social workers and anti-obesity coordinators! And poets! We need poets!'...
"Is this just for houses that are unable to obtain insurance, though?"
No. It said can't get or haven't got insurance. Could just be bad reporting though.
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