Sitting in my office in Glasgow, looking out on another reasonable day, I might be forgiven for feeling a bit isolated from this natural crisis. Granted, my weekends have been filled with an unusual amount of snow, but it is winter and I enjoy it so i’m not complaining.

However, I’m getting more and more confused by what’s actually happening with this “almost unparalleled natural crisis”.

I see soldiers running around on the news and some fairly grave sounding sound bites being delivered by high ranking officials….but the figures seem to suggest it’s not actually that bad? Some stuff from the BBC for example:

Roger Harrabin
Environment analyst
Is this an unprecedented crisis? It depends how you measure it.

Certainly the rainfall in January across southern England is unprecedented in records stretching back to 1766. The soaking January was preceded by a wet December and followed by the start of a wet February. Storm has followed relentless storm in a way that makes the Met Office suspect manmade climate change is at play.

The rains have soaked the rocks and levels of water in boreholes are unprecedented as is the duration of the flooding, especially on the Somerset Levels.

But in terms of damage to life and property, well these floods are by no means unprecedented.

The Environment Agency says 5,800 properties are flooded since the start of December. A handful of people has died from weather-related incidents.

Compare that with 2007 when 55,000 homes were flooded. Or 1946-47 when 100,000 properties were inundated as snow melted.

Or 1607, when more than 2,000 people died when a storm swept up the Bristol Channel.

The comparisons aren’t completely accurate because flood defences have increased over the years.

The Environment Agency says for instance that they have defended 1.3 million homes that otherwise would have been flooded this year.

Link

UK flooding put in context

Am I missing something? Why has this bout of bad weather prompted such a reaction?

Is it political, the south overreacting, media frenzy or it’s actually worse than it looks?

Crucially/cynically its roximity to London may be a factor contributing to the hype. Certainly life in and around Reading as been greatly inconvenienced by all this water.

I have yet to see a reporter covering the crucial topic, namely the state of the local trails.

perspective you say?

The strongest tropical cyclone of the year has slammed into the central Philippines after President Benigno Aquino ordered mass evacuations to reduce the risk of disaster.

Super Typhoon Haiyan, known as Yolanda in the Philippines, made landfall in Samar province early Friday, with sustained winds of 315 kilometers per hour and gusts of 379 kilometers per hour.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-08/an-worlds-most-powerful-typhoon-makes-landfall-in-philippines/5078216

It’s affecting the London commuter belt, so it assumes more importance. London media know where the Thames is, so naturally they wantto eport on it.

I wasn’t going to draw comparisons with international disasters, but I completely agree. I was in Vietnam when the typhoon hit and whilst we managed to stay clear (thanks to the luxury of being able to afford air travel, hotels and being able to drop everything)…something most of the locals couldn’t do), we travelled through affected areas afterwards. Humbling stuff.

I was also working/living in Hull during the 2007 floods, which seemed to me to be much worse in terms of damage caused to homes

peterfile – Member

I was also working/living in Hull during the 2007 floods, which seemed to me to be much worse in terms of damage caused to homes

Are you working/living in the flooded areas this time round?

Storm has followed relentless storm in a way that makes the Met Office suspect manmade climate change is at play.

2 decades of no warming: Weather != climate
3 months of wet weather: OMG CATACLISMIC MAN MADE CLIMATE CHANGE

Are you working/living in the flooded areas this time round?

No, I’m only going by what i’m seeing on the media and facts, which is what the whole thread is about. Figures suggest that 10 times more homes were affected in 2007. Therefore, at the moment, the only thing which appears to me to be “unparalleled”, is the use of superlatives.

The Environment Agency says 5,800 properties are flooded since the start of December. A handful of people has died from weather-related incidents.

Compare that with 2007 when 55,000 homes were flooded.

peterfile – Member

Are you working/living in the flooded areas this time round?

No, I’m only going by what i’m seeing on the media and hard facts, which is what the whole thread is about.

It is. I imagine the situation seems fairly crisis like if you’re living somewhere under 5 feet of water, with more serious storms yet to come and being told that the water won’t recede for months, though.

somerset has been under water since xmas iirc, the thames commuter belt since last weekend.
why did somerset not get all the military help?

i’m not disputing that it’s horrible for those affected theflatboy, whether it’s one home or a million. My point is that it doesn’t appear to be as bad as is being described. Perhaps the comparison is to previous natural crisis in the South?

why did somerset not get all the military help?

the military turned up, decided there was nothing they could do.

the media and political attention certainly did seem to ramp up a notch when the flooding spread from SW into SE commuter belt. If I had been in Somerset and flooded since xmas this would have annoyed me.

the military turned up, decided there was nothing they could do.

in somerset?

Power cuts and having to mop out a bit of raw sewage in Chertsey is deeply unpleasant, I grant you, but the amount of hysteria driven by the authorities is quite something.

As a population, we’ve handed over all responsibility for self-sufficency to these authorities and now we revert to a child-like helplessness when anything untoward happens.

Shouting at the Environment Agency seems to be the default response for a godless age.

Perhaps the comparison is to previous natural crisis in the South?

Even off the top of my head I can think of a few in recent memory that were far worse in the south – the ‘hurricane’ in 1987, this one:

http://www.itv.com/news/2013-12-05/in-pictures-the-storm-surge-of-1953/

peterfile, it’s more to do with having 24hrs of news to fill and a great opportunity for endless points scoring from politicians, the media and the great unwashed.

Simply a case of the monty pythons yorkshiremen really. It’s making the news down here in Oz where we have had areas on fire bigger than wales for a while. The posh people with wet range rovers do make good tv though.

Shouting at the Environment Agency seems to be the default response

I thought we were meant to be blaming gay people for wanting to get married? 😕

why did somerset not get all the military help?

Because it would have been a PR disaster for Dave to let the same happen again.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/posts/UK-flooding-put-in-context

If you measured severity using a time related unit, like floodhours, I’m sure this years cataclysm would stand up well to previous apocolyptic winters.

As for the old North V South thing – well Hull c’mon, you’d fix the whole town for a price of a half decent semi in Surrey 😛

The posh people with wet range rovers do make good tv though.

and people sitting in a boat being pulled along by firemen when the water is ankle deep. Or being carried by a soldier through water less than knee deep. Do these people have no pride?

why did somerset not get all the military help?

Presumably because the county council didn’t ask for it. In order to get military assistance the local authority has to request it, it’s not a central government decision, per se, to send in the troops. I could go in to the detail but it gets a bit long winded.

By the time the good leaders of Somerset had asked for military help, it was too late for us to be able to actually do anything practical to prevent further flooding as it’d already happened. A lot of people who say “call in the Army” think we can do all sorts of things in these situations, when in reality we’re actually fairly limited in capability – sandbag filling, vehicles capable of fording and a few boats are about the sum of it. We’re not some sort of rescue service!

When Noah rocks up its a crisis till then.

davetrave, I was not having a pop.
I think it was pointless calling in the forces. sandbags were never gonna stop this.

We should just wait for the foreign aid and medicin sans frontiers to start rolling in

Hmmm…

Zoom out!

It’s a chameleon invasion!

I was in Staines yesterday on business and a couple of things strike me.

The flooding looks worse than it is, to me, a lot of it is on watermeadow and floodplains and the property directly next to the river is fine. I stayed overnight in a riverside hotel! However, in 15 year of going to work in the Staines area the flooding is unprecidented.

Lots of houses that are affected have clearly been build below previous high water levels in the 19th and 20th century.

However, more homes have actuall flooded in Berks / Surrey than Somerset, plus the proximity to London makes the rolling outside broadcast a bit easier

Also the water doesn’t show any sign of abating yet so businesses are begining to suffer.

The storm surge, or the hurricane of ’87 were isloated incidents. The storms at the moment seem to be relentless, even if individually they aren’t that bad. I think thats what makes it significantly different to anything that’s gone before.

Media will hype up anything, best to ignore all that.

“Unparalleled Natural Crisis?” No. It’s just the army doing as ordered by their political masters; exaggerate the scale of the storms to minimise the percieved incompetence of their aforesaid masters.

I think it’s all just a viral marketing campaign to do with a certain Russell Crowe film.

Horrific as it is for the people affected, unfortunately we have really bad weather sometimes, and we’ve just had a bad run of it.

when in reality we’re actually fairly limited in capability

Can’t you just shoot the water? Blow it up a bit?

Why has this bout of bad weather prompted such a reaction?

Because it has affected the more densely populated areas of the UK. You may recall a few years ago when 90% of country was covered in snow and ice and the meeja gave it a few minutes coverage after the usual guff about the Middle East and politics. Then one day it snowed in London and – OMG – people had difficulty getting home 🙄

Hearts and minds molgrips, you need to get the water on side and adopt a democratic system of flooding.

ton – Member
davetrave, I was not having a pop.
I think it was pointless calling in the forces. sandbags were never gonna stop this.

Nah, I know you weren’t! But I just sit and shake my head when I see people on the news saying “we want the Army” without actually thinking about what they want us to do or can do. I’ve a lot of experience in the military contribution to civil emergencies and it’s something I’ve seen a lot of – people do, for whatever reason, genuinely think we’re the solution to any and every problem!

What counts as a “natural crisis”? Is it just weather or can we include plagues? The Black Death was a bit more serious than flooded real estate and disrupted trains.

It affected the densely populated home counties tory voting areas this time. And the truth is sinking in, even to them, that this govt is an incompetent sham.

when in reality we’re actually fairly limited in capability

Can’t you just shoot the water? Blow it up a bit?

😆

It’s just the army doing as ordered by their political masters; exaggerate the scale of the storms to minimise the percieved incompetence of their aforesaid masters.

Eh? At what point has the Army done anything to exaggerate the scale of the problem? It looks to me more like it’s the media who’re doing that…

That army person on the post Cobra press conference yesterday.

So one soundbite yesterday, in something that’s been going on for well over a month being whipped up by the press, and that’s your justification…? Tha’s a bit weak…

Staying strictly UK, this thread isn’t here to draw international comparisons.

Is it unprecedented? No, but, it is extreme, the return periods and duration of the rain combined with high tides and wind has caused a lot of flooding and damage in a relatively short space of time.

Houses that were (rightly or wrongly) perceived to be safe-ish, have been inundated. Although in the flood plain a lot of these properties have not been flooded in very long time or at all, people tend to assign future likelyhood based on past events. Our brains aren’t good at handling stats and likelyhoods.

Is the media furory overkill? Yes definitely but I don’t believe the severity of something should be judged by its media hype. The two are not dependent. See X factor on ice vs South Sudan for reference.

No doubt we’ll see more of it as time goes on.