Policeman dies as devastating deluge strikes Britain

Four bridges collapse, main roads are blocked and hundreds are evacuated as 12 inches of rain falls in Cumbria in 24 hours
Helen Carter, guardian.co.uk 20 Nov 09;

A policeman swept away and killed during the devastating flooding that hit north-west England was trying to save lives by directing motorists off a bridge across a swollen river.

PC Bill Barker, who would have been 45tomorrow , was praised by the prime minister, Gordon Brown, as a "very heroic, very brave man" who had given his life saving others after Cumbria was struck by what the Environment Agency described as "unprecedented" rainfall.

Severe flooding in the county was driven by a combination of heavy rain, saturated ground and swollen rivers.

Hundreds were evacuated from their homes, four bridges collapsed and main roads were blocked after 314mm (12.4in) of rain fell in 24 hours – a record for England.

Flooding was also reported in north-west Wales and Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland, but Cumbria was hardest hit.

Workington MP Tony Cunningham said the flood was "of biblical proportions" and he was astonished by the destruction of the Northside bridge, which led to PC Barker's death.

"The force of the river was absolutely incredible. This is a stone bridge. To wash away a bridge of that size and dimension is incredible."

Fifty people were evacuated by RAF helicopters from Cockermouth, where the river Cocker joins the Derwent, after flooding cut off the town centre.

Police said PC Barker, a father of four, had gone out on foot to direct motorists off the Northside bridge, which crosses the Derwent in Workington, when it gave way and swept him into the water at 4.40am .

Jerry Graham, the assistant chief constable of the Cumbria constabulary said: "Members of the public were trying to cross the bridge, it was obvious they were going to put themselves in danger.

"So PC Barker went out on to the bridge on foot to try and protect them. Unfortunately when they were on the bridge, it gave way just due to the volume of water and PC Barker went into the water and was swept away."

One local claimed PC Barker had gone to the aid of a driver who had got stuck on the stone bridge as it collapsed, but this was not confirmed by police.

Robin Taylor, 50, a maintenance engineer from Workington, said: "I was told the police officer had responded to an emergency call and gone to the bridge to help a car that had become stuck and, as he was leading them away, the pavement side of the bridge collapsed first and he was gone. It is really sad, I thought it was absolutely shocking.

His body, still in uniform, was found washed up on a beach .

His widow, Hazel, described him as her best friend and an "amazing dad". She said: "I have the comfort of knowing that Bill died doing the job he loved, and the fact that he was helping others is just typical Bill."

Evacuated residents spent last night in emergency reception centres across Cumbria. Red Cross worker Ian Rideout said many of those rescued in Cockermouth were suffering from shock.

He said: "The centre of Cockermouth looks like it has been completely destroyed – I've never seen anything like it. The water has caused so much damage that many of the homes here are completely ruined.

"We've been working non-stop and between the Red Cross and RNLI we've rescued in the region of 200 people from their homes. Last night, I went up in one of the helicopters to get an idea of the full scale of the disaster and where we should focus rescue efforts. Almost straight away we found four people on the roof of their home who needed to be winched to safety.

"Most of the people we've rescued have been in shock. One minute it's raining heavily, then the next their home is filling with water and they're being evacuated by the Red Cross."

Water was feared to have seeped into the cellar at Wordsworth House in Cockermouth, the poet's birthplace, potentially damaging valuable archives.

The death of PC Barker highlighted the dangers for rescue workers. RNLI lifeboat operations manager, Brian Ashbridge, said a "massive current" sweeping down the Derwent made conditions challenging for crews searching the river basin.

"It's absolutely horrendous. There is a huge amount of debris around in the water at the moment as well, which adds to the difficulties."

The environment secretary, Hilary Benn, who was in Cockermouth to assess the flooding, said defences built after the 2005 floods that were designed to withstand a "one-in-100-years flood" were unable to cope with the volume of water.

Benn said: "What we dealt with last night was probably more like one-in-1,000 so even the very best defences, if you have such quantities of rain in such a short space of time, can be overtopped."

The heavy rainfall was caused by a slow-moving front of air which rolled in from the Atlantic, according to the Met Office.

A spokesman said: "It was warm air coming from the Azores, so being warm it had the potential to hold a lot of water. When it hit land it was forced to rise and then cool, to produce the heavy rain."

Experts warned of a funding shortfall that could thwart official plans to prevent future floods. Nick Reeves, executive director of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management, said he welcomed the flood and water management bill, announced in the Queen's speech on Wednesday, which gives local authorities responsibility for surface water flooding for the first time and puts the Environment Agency in overall charge of flooding.

But he said: "Our concern at the moment is that most local authorities don't have the additional resources needed to tackle this at local level. The bill doesn't guarantee any additional cash. In six months we are going to have a general election and this government hasn't committed to additional funding.

"Lessons should be learned from the 1997 floods. We know that climate change will bring warmer and wetter winters so we need to plan now."

The flood bill is the government's response to Sir Michael Pitt's report into the 1997 floods.

Stormy outlook

Cumbria was due a brief respite from the heavy rain last night and early this morning, but experts predicted further rain and unsettled weather into the start of next week. A Met Office spokesman said: "There will be more rain from mid to late morning, clearing in the late afternoon. We are expecting about 15-40mm, which is normal for Cumbria. The outlook is unsettled and the rain won't help the clear-up but I would expect river levels to subside over the next two to three days."

It will be very windy on Sunday, with gales or severe gales in west Cumbria, which could cause structural damage, he said. "There will be blustery showers and we could see that for the next week but no prolonged period of rain like we saw on Wednesday and Thursday." Wet and windy conditions were expected over most of the UK today, starting in the south and moving east and west to cover all areas.

Karen McVeigh

Cumbria floods: history of recent storms
The floods which have hit Cumbria following record amounts of rainfall are the latest in a series of severe flooding events to hit Britain in recent years.
The Telegraph 20 Nov 09;

* In August 2004, heavy rain caused two rivers to burst their banks, leading to flash flooding in the village of Boscastle, on the coast of north Cornwall.

Some 150 people had to be airlifted to safety by rescue helicopters and millions of pounds of damage was done to the picturesque village, which lies in a deep coomb where two valleys meet. Miraculously nobody was killed.

* In January 2005, more than 1,000 houses and businesses in Carlisle in Cumbria were swamped by water when the city suffered its worst floods since the 1820s.

Thousands abandoned their homes and a power cut plunged Carlisle into darkness after the county was battered by heavy rain and winds gusting at up to 90mph. Three people died in the floods.

* In June 2007, weeks of rain were topped off by a deluge that hit Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Wales and saw flooding in towns and cities including Sheffield, Doncaster and Hull.

Rivers burst their banks, surface water caused flash flooding and the Ulley Dam in south Yorkshire threatened to breach, with potentially devastating consequences.

* In July 2007, more torrential rain swept across the country, causing further flooding, this time centred on the Midlands and the West Country.

Thousands of people in the region were left without power or water as critical infrastructure was hit. Among the worst-hit towns were Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire and Upton upon Severn in Worcestershire.

The floods of summer 2007 were linked with 13 deaths, affected 48,461 homes, 6,896 businesses and around 850 schools and prompted a high-level review of how the country deals with flooding.

Cumbria floods: there's more where that came from
The flooding in Cumbria is part of a pattern of weather which shows that global warming is occurring faster than anyone expected, says Geoffrey Lean.
Geoffrey Lean, The Telegraph 20 Nov 09;

Comments 85 | Comment on this article

It seems unfair, if you are already officially the wettest place in Britain, to be dowsed with the most rainfall ever to fall over 24 hours. But that's what has just happened to the hamlet of Seathwaite, in Cumbria's Borrowdale, where, incredibly, over a foot of water bucketed down between 9pm on Wednesday and the same time on Thursday.

If it's any consolation, it may have to give up the distinction before long. For such torrential downpours are happening more and more often in Britain as global warming takes hold. Research at Newcastle University has established that rainstorms have got twice as intense over the last 40 years, while the Environment Agency predicts that days of heavy rainfall will become three to four times more common over the next decades, increasing flooding tenfold.

Three factors cause heavier storms as the climate heats up. As it gets hotter, more energy is injected into the climate. There is a sharper contrast between land and the sea (which warms more slowly), causing stronger winds and greater instability. And as the seas do heat, more water evaporates from them – and comes down as heavier rain.

But experts are surprised it is happening so soon. The Newcastle team said that predictions of the effects of climate change had suggested it would not reach this stage until the end of the century – one more piece of evidence that global warming is occurring faster than anyone expected.