Poor, poor Germany

Many regions in the UK are very vulnerable, especially those that were 'stolen' from the sea a long time ago, like parts of Norfolk and Lincolnshire. But for the grace of God.

Yes, poor Germany-
It seems the first signs of catastrophe were detected nine days ago by a satellite orbiting 500 miles above the hills around the Rhine river. Over the next few days a team of scientists sent the German authorities a series of forecasts so accurate that they now read like a macabre prophecy: the Rhineland was about to be hit by “extreme” flooding, particularly along the Erft and Ahr rivers, and in towns such as Hagen and Altena.
Yet despite at least 24 hours’ warning that predicted, almost precisely, which districts would be worst afflicted when the rains came, the flood still caught many of its victims largely unawares.

The German government is now facing questions about how many lives might have been saved had it evacuated the danger zones in time and properly conveyed the gravity of the impending crisis to the public. As Bild, the country’s bestselling newspaper, put it: “Did our disaster protection agency fail?”

At best shambolic - at worst criminal.

When such a volume of water falls in two days areas that are considered not subject to flooding can become overrun by water. Water is so powerful. With our climate changing, we see unheard-of weather in many, if not all, countries.

When we bought our house in Woodbridge, Suffolk in 2006 one of the searches done automatically was for flooding because we were fairly close to the river. The result was that the area where we bought was not subject to flooding. The river did burst its banks, especially when there were spring tides combined with wind and rain. The only things to suffer were the yacht club and the boating pond.

I read this morning that relatively few people had signed up to flood warnings and that some of the "alarm" systems were malfunctioning when tested.

Apparently warnings were sent out last weekend. The following is from the BBC NEws website:

"Amid the despair and the mounting death toll in Germany and Belgium are questions about how such a disaster could have happened.

The flooding followed record rainfall in parts of western Europe that caused rivers to burst their banks.

Professor Hannah Cloke, a hydrologist who set up and now advises the European Flood Awareness System - an EU programme designed to provide early warnings of dangerous floods - said alerts were sent to authorities in Europe over the weekend.

"There were alerts going out... saying there's some very serious rain and floods coming: be aware. It's then for the national authorities to take that information and go with it," she said.

Prof Cloke said there were places where the system had "done what it's designed to do", with early warnings heeded.

But there were "also places where those warnings did not get through to the people and they did not know it was going to happen".

Prof Cloke set up the warning system after deadly flooding in Europe in 2002, hoping to prevent such an event from happening again.

But she said the latest flooding had exposed "breaks in the chain". "

It appears that not everyone took it that seriously ?
Certainly not this would be next chancellor.
www.smh.com.au/world/europe/frontrunner-to-succeed-merkel-sorry-for-laughing-scene-in-visit-to-fatal-floods-20210718-p58arz.html

Floods in Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands and severe drought in Madagascar:
www.downtoearth.org.in/news/climate-change/climate-crisis-madagascar-drought-worsens-77964

A housing development, in my village, was built right up to the edge of a river. The locals protested that the fields in that area flooded ever winter, hence the farmer never left any livestock in those fields. Many historic photographs were provided to prove the point. But the council decided that it wouldn't happen and a developer moved in and built 36 homes at £500,000 each. First winter, every single house was flooded to one degree or another. So they dug up another field and built underground storage tanks that would drain off the surface flood water - in theory. But it didn't stop the underground flooding and gardens, paths and roads continue to crack and crumble under the weight of the water. Every one of those houses is struggling to get house insurance "because they're on a flood plain". Well! Who knew!

MerylStreep

Callistemon
A friend of mine was born the night that Canvey Island flooded. The water started to come over the bedroom windowsill minutes after she was born.

I wonder if her story featured in the newspapers?

I do remember this and remember my mother getting very upset about so many stories.
www.canveyisland.org/history-2/floods/flood-photos/miracle-baby-photo

Flood plain development is fine until it isn’t.

Now the government has drawn back from helping the householder, and yet it doesn’t stop developers from building.

No householder whose property is in danger can now be sure that she will be given assistance.

A huge amount of land all over are built on floodplains....the whole of the Thames Valley for a start.

Whitewavemark2

The EA who are responsible for flood prevention, quite bizarrely have no power to prevent flood plains being built on.

Developers have built most of our "government allocation" of new-buildhomes (3,600) on watermeadows not far from my home. The local council has loads of brownfield sites but the developers wanted new, green land as it's cheaper to build. I spoke to the senior planning officer about it and was told if the council had money to clear the land first, the developments would have been on the brown land but the councils have no spare cash. If they refused the green field sites then they would have suffered financial penalty from central government.

So the developers have built a series of lakes and waterways between the new homes which they obviously assume is enough.

Years ago we used to have travelling theatre companies doing plays at our village hall. The last one I saw there was a black comedy about a couple who took to their boat after flood water started to rise around them. I really wish I hadn’t been to see it because it upset me at the time, the black bit being for more dominant that the comedy. It’s one of those things that sticks in your mind and keeps coming back when things like this happen. The village was built where two rivers met but, hundreds of years ago people knew where it was safe to build. They did some flood defences further upstream a few years ago and all they do is cause problems further downstream. It’s beyond me how people are allowed to build on flood plains.

The EA who are responsible for flood prevention, quite bizarrely have no power to prevent flood plains being built on.

GrannyGravy
Oh no!!!!
Many years ago I truly believed that my generation wouldn’t see the horrors that are surely to come, only my grandchildren. But now I’m not so sure.
Still, if the worst comes to the worst I have a couple of friends who live aboard in Wakering boatyard.

MerylStreep

Callistemon
A friend of mine was born the night that Canvey Island flooded. The water started to come over the bedroom windowsill minutes after she was born.

There is a big campaign this side of the bridge to prevent them building 350 + houses on the flood plains at Jotmans Farm.
Absolutely ludicrous, the area which already has housing would become vulnerable to flooding along with the new builds.

Callistemon
A friend of mine was born the night that Canvey Island flooded. The water started to come over the bedroom windowsill minutes after she was born.

Greta

As far as I know local authorities are still granting planning permission for residential development in areas at risk of flooding. I guess meeting targets for new houses lies behind this. You can incorporate flood resilience in new buildings but I'm not aware this is a requirement.

It is shocking that this is happening, Greta. Some are being built near us - we were talking about it with neighbours and we're all agreed that we wouldn't buy one.

Flood plains are there to soak up flood water.

We lived in Brisbane during the floods of 74. Homes were swept away, dead animals floated past, people wept. It was horrendous
I remember the more recent one in 2010 - a relative had just moved house two weeks previously and the house they'd been renting up until then was swept away.

I was very young, about 7, when the East Anglian floods (North Sea flood) happened but old enough to read the papers and hear my parents talking about the devastation then. Over 2,500 people died.

Instinct perhaps- thinking about it, we have always bought homes at the top of a hill. We have so often fallen in love with houses by the water, and then said 'nah' just not worth the risk.

I hope we soon get instructions from help groups to tell us if and how we can help in any practical way. My parents hosted a family for a while, then just one of the teenage son, when I was a toddler- after a natural disaster.

LauraNorder, a good many NGOs - a dd worked for one for many years, inc. in several disaster zones - do take care that money is not diverted into corrupt pockets.

This is one reason, I’ve always gathered, why a multinational variety of staff are used in any senior position where a local person could be subject to pressure from an official, or e.g. a village elder. Dd has experienced just such a case - threatening behaviour from a village elder towards inhabitants, to make them hand over half the cash they were being paid to help with the clear-up operation. (This was after the tsunami of 2004.).

After bitter complaints from the workers, a visit to that elder ensued (he was a scary bloke with a rifle!) where he was told very firmly that unless this stopped at once, nobody would be getting any money at all.
It stopped.

Admittedly, government corruption could be harder to deal with. They had to wait several weeks for the vehicles that were urgently needed in devastated terrain, because they refused to pay the bribes demanded by customs. Who did eventually give in, once it dawned that they were flogging a dead horse.

As far as I know local authorities are still granting planning permission for residential development in areas at risk of flooding. I guess meeting targets for new houses lies behind this. You can incorporate flood resilience in new buildings but I'm not aware this is a requirement.

Can we all imagine what this would have looked like if had been in Spain ( on the costas)
The horror is that at sometime it is going to happen.

A sad and devastating loss of life and homes.
We lived in Brisbane during the floods of 74. Homes were swept away, dead animals floated past, people wept. It was horrendous. The smells were horrific. The clean up and rebuild took months, the shock and sadness lasted much longer.
I am not a fan of monetary aid but hope that we will help in practical ways with personnel and equipment.
I think this should apply to aid worldwide. Personnel, water pipes and systems, properly built sewers and solidly built shelters is more use to people in third world countries than money which is often syphoned off by corrupt leaders.
I don’t mean European countries in my last paragraph of course.