Monday 23 November 2009

A bridge over troubled water

As a new working week begins, people living in parts of Cumbria are opening their curtains to see something that resembles a disaster zone.

Floods from unprecedented rainfall have destroyed the infrastructure in places such as Cockermouth and life is very different to normal, with schools and workplaces closed and travel severely disrupted. Hundreds of people are homeless, staying either in temporary shelters or with friends and family.

Bridges that have stood for hundreds of years have either already collapsed or are in serious danger of falling, and all 1,800 bridges in Cumbria (that's more bridges than a Westlife song!) are getting vital safety checks. One remarkable thing I read is that, because of bridge problems, people in Northside face a 40-mile detour just to get to the town centre... a journey which usually takes a matter of minutes.

This is the sort of thing we read about happening in other countries, particularly in the developing world. And, whilst we are undoubtedly richer and better resourced to face disasters such as this than in countries such as Bangladesh, the scenes in Cumbria remain truly devastating.

Families will be without basic essentials. Businesses will be forced to shut. Children's education will be disrupted. Sitting here safely in Oxfordshire, I count myself fortunate (though this region has had its fair share of floods in recent years.)

I believe climate change is to blame for record rainfall like that in Cumbria on Friday and Saturday. On a world level, we need leaders committed to tackling climate change - the forthcoming Copenhagen summit is crucial. In the UK, we need to better equipped - the government and county councils across the country need to take flood prevention more seriously, and have solid plans put in place for situations like this.

We also need to monitor levels and trends on all rivers better (some residents in Cumbria say they were not sufficiently warned) and BBC blogger Mark Easton says that "the River Eden, for example, had been behaving entirely normally for the past few months".

My thoughts go out to those most-affected by this situation - but I hope that experts are understanding that words like 'freak', 'unique' and 'unprecedented' can't keep being rolled out - bad weather is now all too common.
(Photo credit: Peter Thody)