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Cockermouth: Experts Say Deadly Torrents Cannot Be Prevented
Sun 22nd Nov 09 - 13:53

FLOOD experts are warning that the kind of deluge that devastated the town of Cockermouth last week and caused the death of a police officer in nearby Workington is in effect unpreventable.

And they said Britain must brace itself for many more such disasters.

A foot of rain fell in 24 hours across Cumbria. Just as the flood waters began to recede, it started to rain again at midday yesterday and with up to another 1.5in predicted today, a massive clean-up operation has only just begun.

Police warned residents not to go back into flooded houses and a decontamination unit was set up in the centre of Cockermouth to combat sewage that may have leaked into the water. More than 1,300 homes have been flooded and left coated with sludge. Christmas displays were washed away from shop windows.

Such floods are becoming more frequent and more severe, the experts say. This is the fourth big flooding emergency in the UK in the past 11 years.

Professor Paul Samuels, technical director of the flooding group at HR Wallingford, which advises the government and industry on managing rivers and water, said: “It is technically possible to defend places like Cockermouth against these extreme events but only by building huge walls and embankments along the river which would cost billions and alter the character of the town. For most communities that would be as unacceptable as the floods.

“The reality is that floods are going to keep happening. We can mitigate them by building good defences but there is a limit. In a way the greatest change we need to make is in the way we think about floods. We need to accept they will happen and prepare accordingly.”

David Jordan, director of operations at the Environment Agency, said: “A lot of people in my experience will actually draw a line at a certain level because of the potential impact. No one wants this huge concrete wall which is likely to be needed on a very infrequent basis.”

As water levels began to fall yesterday the destruction became clear. Many roads were left with gaping craters, while bridges over the River Cocker had been smashed by branches and other debris.

Organised power cuts allowed the rescue services to enter stricken homes without fear of electrocution.

Phil Rothwell, head of flood strategy at the Environment Agency, said: “This flood was not preventable. The amount of water was so great that no flood defences in England and Wales could have withstood it.”

The floods in Cumbria were triggered by an “unprecedented” downpour over 24 hours between Thursday and Friday — the greatest deluge since records began in 1727.

PC Bill Barker, who would have been 45 yesterday, was killed while trying to shepherd people to safety from a bridge that gave way beneath him. An inspection of 1,800 other bridges was under way yesterday.

Insurers indicated that it may be up to a year before some residents could move back in to their homes.

Gordon Brown, who visited the area yesterday, pledged an extra £1m of government money to help with the clean-up and repairs, while insurers estimated that the final cost could reach £100m.

Cockermouth, where the Derwent and Cocker rivers converge at the foot of a range of rainswept hills, was worst hit. Residents were forced to flee as the water rose to head height in the streets. The town did not have a reputation for being frequently flooded and extra flood defences installed a decade ago gave it protection against anything but the kind of flood that occurs on average every 64 years in Britain. Those were upgraded further earlier this year to protect it against anything but a one in 100 years event.

However, they proved to be of no avail. As Hilary Benn, the environment secretary, said when he visited the town on Friday to survey the damage: “This flooding is more like one in 1,000 years.”

In nearby Carlisle, which saw bad flooding four years ago, newly installed, although not yet fully completed, defences now give it protection to a one in 200 years standard.They stood it in good stead last week, and the city witnessed none of the chaos visited upon Cockermouth.

However, the prospect of significantly further bolstering the flood defences of towns such as Cockermouth may be unrealistic. This weekend the centre of the town was littered with branches and logs as the water levels slowly dropped. Riverside businesses and the recently restored former home of William Wordsworth stood abandoned to the waters while a family of geese paddled up and down the main street.

Yvonne Lambert, who lives alongside the River Cocker with her husband Steve and 16-year-old son Jordan, said: “The water came in to 5ft. When I left in the morning the river was flowing quite fast and it was higher than normal, but it has been like that before. When I came back I just stood at the end of the road sobbing into my hands. It was like armageddon. I couldn’t get to the house. Jordan had to get out through the back and jump over a wall — he was waist deep in the water.

“We have lived here for 21 years and it has never flooded. About 10 years ago the Environment Agency came and put up a wall to protect against flooding — what else could they do? The river often runs high but hasn’t flooded before.”

Brendan Pickering, 47, told how he saw PC Barker swept to his death as the bridge at Workington collapsed under the pressure of the swollen River Derwent. He was walking his dogs just after 5am on Friday when he heard a “whooshing noise” as the bridge started to collapse.

He said: “I went up onto the bridge and it seemed part of it was missing — all I could see was what looked like a big puddle. There was a car coming onto the bridge so I stopped him and warned him not to go any further. I phoned 999 for the police and told them that the bridge was collapsing.

“It seemed to be like the bridge was starting to move — it was pitching and bucking because of the pressure from the river. The lad in the car did a quick three-point turn to get off and I flagged down two articulated lorries who were approaching it.

“Then I heard the first section break as a young policewoman and a young male colleague arrived. She shouted at us to get off the top of the bridge.

“I looked across to the other side and saw a van turn side on in the road to stop other traffic crossing. There was a bus approaching and I was shouting across the river for him to reverse because I could see that the bridge was going.

“I saw the poor policeman who died come up on the other side with his lights flashing. At the same time another section went and it must have set up a domino effect because the whole structure collapsed.

“I took the dogs home and when I got back the policewoman said that she thought her colleague on the other side had gone into the water.

“She was obviously very upset and I offered to get another officer to take her place but she never left that bridge. She knew she could not leave in case other cars tried to get across. That took some guts.”

Peter Archer, 64, who lives in the centre of Cockermouth, said: “It was about 4pm on Thursday afternoon when the water just came gushing through the door. We had to go upstairs. We’d already carried some things up because we were warned the floods might be coming.

“But most of the stuff must be wrecked. We could hear the furniture being thrown around, banging against the walls. We didn’t really get any sleep. The water got to within three steps of the upstairs.

“They came for us at around 6am. There was a lifeboat outside the window. We had to jump into it. Then they took us down the main street. It was an amazing sight, the whole place was under water, everything was wrecked.

“You could only see the tops of the shop windows. All the Christmas displays were washed away. The whole town has been devastated.”

Barbara Davis, 53, said: “The two rivers have come in on us and destroyed the town. It was like a raging torrent which came through the front door. It just surged through the house. Things that were at the front of the house have been washed through to the back. The force was so strong it lifted the fridge-freezer up and tipped it over.”

Sharron Braithwaite, 40, was with her parents on a street leading to the River Cocker and was about to leave for work in a grocery shop in the town when the water levels began rising, trapping her baby girl and her disabled parents.

She said: “The river had been rising all morning but I never thought it would flood — sometimes it has been level with the wall but never come over so I got ready to go to work.

“As I walked out of the door the water must have just started coming over and I realised I had to get everyone out. I went to move the car but within five minutes the water was knee deep and it quickly became thigh deep. I couldn’t get to the house and they couldn’t get out — my mum needs oxygen and can’t walk very far.

“I really panicked because the water was rising all of the time and I really started fearing the worst. They were on the ground floor and couldn’t get upstairs, so I shouted for help. Some people from the Environment Agency were passing by and they rushed in, carrying my mum and the baby out of the back.”

Environment Agency bosses said they had been particularly pleased by the effectiveness of its early warning system, in which people at risk of flooding are notified, often by text or email, of impending weather problems.

But Tim Farron, MP for the Cumbrian constituency of Westmorland and Lonsdale and the Liberal Democrat spokesman for the environment, said that although some things had worked during the floods, such as the defences at Carlisle, the Environment Agency could have better informed people about the impending disaster.

“The agency was very good at keeping me informed, but in Burneside they only got the text messages at 7pm on Thursday when they had already been flooded for several hours,” he said.

“And on the Aynam Road in Kendal they didn’t get them at all.” He also said better drainage systems should have been in place to handle the torrents of water.

But he conceded: “In the end it’s probably true that no drainage system could have coped with this. All you can do with events like this is mitigate against them.”

The Environment Agency said early today that two severe flood warnings for Burneside had been sent by text, phone, email and fax at 2.13pm on Thursday.

To view the original article, please click here.

The Times, Daniel Foggo and Dominic Tobin

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