Crippling British floods a sign of the times

Rain has eased but it's the calm before another storm, writes BILLY ADAMS

LONDON - The suave television reporter, standing knee high in a fast-flowing river that used to be the main village street, informs his viewers: "Well, as you can see, it's really wet here."

Such statements of the obvious have become the norm on British TV in recent days. In a nation obsessed with the weather at the best of times, the media has been lapping up some of the worst storms and floods in recorded history.

For home and business owners it is a different story. As rivers across the country burst their banks, cascading water into heavily populated areas, there were thousands of stories of untold misery. A dozen lives have been lost, homes and businesses destroyed and the transport network crippled in some places. The likely cost to the economy could rise to more that £1 billion ($3.4 billion).

Such has been the devastation that Prince Charles felt the need to speak out during a speech to the British Medical Association's Millennium Festival of Medicine this week. The storms lashing the country were a direct result of "mankind's arrogant disregard for the delicate balance of nature," he said.

Attacked by some academics as arrogant and ignorant, The Prince's comments nevertheless raised the political stakes on the environment, a subject Prime Minister Tony Blair has done his best to avoid since coming to power in 1997.

But the events of the past few weeks have been impossible to ignore.

Forecasters believe autumn 2000 will come to be known as the wettest since records began 273 years ago.

Normal rainfall between September and November is 25cm. Already this year there have been 32cm - and that is with three weeks still to go.

At the height of the chaos earlier this week more than 5000 properties were under water as rivers burst their banks. Some rivers - like the Ouse in Yorkshire and Severn in western England - resembled large lakes stretching for miles.

Some communities which were flooded more than a week ago are still completely cut off. Other areas are bracing themselves as forecasters predict more heavy falls early next week.

The worst-hit areas so far have been parts of Kent, Sussex, Yorkshire, the Midlands and the Northeast.

This week thousands more people were evacuated as dozens of severe flood warnings of imminent danger to life and property were put in force across the country. Scores of roads and rail links were closed.

Scotland escaped the worst of the damage, but torrential downpours earlier this week left rivers in the east of the country close to bursting point.

Six months ago the country endured its worst floods in 80 years and many people were forced to leave their homes. Some have returned in only the past two weeks, and were once again facing the prospect of more heartache.

Today's rugby test match between Scotland and Australia was even under threat at one point. Murrayfield Stadium was under nearly 1m of water during the last floods, and this week a nearby river again rose dangerously close to overflowing.

In other areas of Britain troops were brought in to help boost flood defences. Residents of the historic City of York were on tenterhooks for days as the level of the Ouse rose 2.5cm above its highest recorded peak in 1625. More than 90 tonnes of sand was used to fill sandbags and keep the water at bay. The Army brought more sand in as stocks dwindled.

Local man Vic Heard was drinking in his local pub, the Jubilee Arms, when a group of policemen and soldiers came in asking if one or two regulars could lend a hand.

He said: "I have never seen the pub empty so quick. The landlady said she wouldn't serve anybody unless they went out to help. We soon had 140 pub customers and residents forming a human chain along the river.

"The lasses were inside making tea and coffee for everybody."

In Gloucester the authorities drew up emergency plans to evacuate inmates from a prison which was under threat.

Residents of exclusive Maidenhead, in Berkshire, home to the rich and famous, found that the Thames had come to meet them as the river levels rose to 20 per cent higher than normal.

Sandbags acted as a last line of defence as the water lapped against chat show host Michael Parkinson's home.

Kate Winslet, star of the movie Titanic, also had to put down sandbags to protect her £800,000 home on an island in the middle of the Thames.

Australian entertainer Rolf Harris was not so lucky. The ground floor of his house was left under more than 30cm of water, wiping out a fish pond and badly damaging a music room and bathroom.

Forecasters warned that Britain faces more devastating storms over the coming months and must prepare for wild weather over Christmas.

Piers Corbyn, of Weather Action, who bases his forecasts on solar activity, told a news conference in London this week: "This is a severe weather warning. It will be as bad as we have seen and probably worse."

The floods that have hit England and Wales in the past month had been described a once-in-a-century event. Mounting evidence suggests that they will be much more commonplace over the next 100 years as global warming radically changes climates around the world.

The Government has pledged £51 million to build better flood defences in the most vulnerable areas, but Blair acknowledged that much more needs to be done by all countries when he addressed Parliament this week.

"These floods have been the worst for 50 years, in some cases, 100 years," he said.

"We have to put in the short-term measures necessary, flood defences and so on. Then we have to take at international level some of the difficult decisions perhaps ducked for too long about some of the issues of climate change."

He has clearly been reading some recent reports that suggest global warming will have much more serious consequences for the planet than previously thought.

Scientists have warned that temperatures will rise significantly in southern Europe in the next century, leaving agriculture and water resources in crisis. The Greek islands will become too hot for holidaymakers in summer and southern Spain will begin to resemble a desert. There could be widespread drought and forest fires.

Another recent British study warned of a grim future for billions of people around the globe, predicting even more extreme weather events such as droughts, hurricanes, rainstorms and floods than witnessed in recent years.

Scientists from the Met Office's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, predicted that global warming would soon speed up because the ability of the earth to absorb carbon dioxide - whose increasing presence in the atmosphere is causing climate change - will be compromised by climate change itself.

"This is a further wake-up call to what is the worst problem the world faces today," said British Environment Minister Michael Meacher, who added that agreement was vital at next week's global warming conference in the Hague, which aims to close loopholes from the Kyoto summit in 1997.

"The severity of this cannot be overstated. I think public opinion has, up until now, underestimated how drastic and severe these phenomena are."

The research predicts that Britain will suffer even heavier rainfall and worse floods in the coming century. Rising sea levels will wipe out coastal communities.

The only winners, it seems, will be TV reporters - and gumboot manufacturers.