Who is this we you speak of AFAIK the majority of England isn't below sea level, and for those areas that are proper town planning or building regulations should have been put in place forcing people to build flood proof houses. And before you go off on one picking apart what i mean by flood proof or how you can or can't make a house flood proof. I mean in the fashion that some houses have been built on stilts 3-4m above the floods of 1953. Indeed, but personally i place the blame with TPTB for allowing people to build non flood proof houses on flood plains. We have building regulations for a reason. Except all the dead people, like the 2000 odd that died in the 1953 flooding.
As Shirty says: we are the Dutch. No, but you can make rivers flood proof. They're the things that flood after all. Yeah, but that was a dyke failure after a severe storm combined with spring tides, which happened once, also affected Belgium and the UK and has not happened again. Not bad for a country that is below sea level. Meanwhile the same areas in the UK get flooded, like, every other year or so. After the event, the UK built storm barriers on the river Thames and the Humber Estuary. The Netherlands built the Delta Works, a 700 kilometres setup that protects like, a quarter of the coast of the Netherlands. I think we win.
Sorry i assumed when you said we you were referring to English, as in my opinion if you are living here you are English. Maybe Dutch/English but no matter where you come from if you live here you are as much apart of the community as anyone else. Rivers can only take so much water though, you either let the flood plains flood, or you build other places for the excess water to go. Personally i prefer the former along with the knowledge that it will happen and building houses with that in mind. The Delta Works took around 40 years and $7 billion to complete and still continues to be added to, either way it may not be in the best of taste debating who has won and who has lost when peoples lives are being effected.
It's not always a matter of building houses on floodplains that then get flooded. It's also that concreteing over grassland means that less rain soaks away and more pours into drains and rivers causing flooding elsewhere.
Dude, my statement was unclear; no need to justify asking for clarification. In the Netherlands we have a combination of summer dykes (zomerdijken) edging the river banks, followed by designated flood plains (uiterwaarden), followed by bigger winter dykes (winterdijken) separating the river from the rest of the land. When not flooded, the uiterwaarden function as additional grass land for cows. Needless to say they are never built on. What this image may not convey is that the uiterwaarden are at least half a mile wide and the winter dykes are huge, like, three storeys high. Totally worth it though when, as you say, human lives are at stake, no?
Yes, but my point was it's probably best not to treat it like a competition on who has won or lost. Like i said nothing could have stopped the floods, the best thing that can be done is to manage them like the Netherlands, by either creating massive amounts of surplus storage that in the case of the UK may only be need once every five decades, or allow the flood plains to actually flood and construct buildings to limit the impact. In earth quake zones and tornado alley governments stipulate a building code to protect the public. Sadly successive governments in the UK have failed in one of their primary roles, that of protecting the public.
Conservative governments love to offload responsibility. They disguise it as not interfering in people's personal freedom, but given that they are the most morally prescriptive when it comes to how people should live, that's just a lie. What conservative governments want is deregulation of the economy so that they can turn it into an all-you-can-eat buffet for themselves and their wealthy buddies. Which means privatisation of public services and deregulation private enterprise. As long as it's good for the economy, who cares where houses are built? Or indeed, to what standard? So whatever regulation Labour put in, the Tories tore down. Until New Labour joined in because they found out too that it's nicer to govern when you have less accountability to worry about --and more opportunity to get rich quick. In the Netherlands the very real possibility of drowning is sort of a cultural fear. No government messes with that, lest they want to be kicked out of office at the next election, if not before.
It's a whistleblower blog, I don't know why you'd expect it to read like a ****ing press release. Why would you be so unwilling to believe that a government department was a) not doing its job and b) being paid well for it? @Nexxo, are you really so stupid or is that just how you like to behave on the internet?
The problem with that comparison is that in the Netherlands its easier to get funding approved for food defences than in the UK, simply put, large parts of the country being below sea level makes flood defences a high priority.
Absolutely. As I said above, living below sea level we are always conscious of the risk of flooding -- it is a cultural fear for us. It's one thing we take very seriously. Are you really that ill-mannered or is that just how you like to behave on forums?
I knew there was a reason I came to this topic. About 1/3rd to 1/2 half of the US goes into complete disarray after 2 inches of snow. Schools get closed, services go down, pile-ups on the highways... most cities dont have snow plows let alone street salt. To most of them 22f is cold, 10f is unbearable. Where i live it had to be -44c before we got any weather warnings other then to drive carefully after some snow. Some places in the states(the places close to Canada) are just as ready as us. But for the most part, id say, they're screwed.
As ever all subjects are a suitable moment for you to dump your political prejudices into the topic with only the laziest effort to make them relevant. If this was the Guardian message boards I'm sure everyone would nod along. I have no idea what elements of flood defences have been privatised. You have basically said that all conservatives (and a previous verson of Labour) are corrupt and it's all their fault. Sure housebuilders have always cosied up to Goverments of all stripes and at all levels. If you want to find corruption of the planning process, you'd probably want to look at local government where the real action happens.
Not that I'm defending anyone, but doesn't the government of the day be it Conservative or Labour have a responsibility when it comes to building regulations ? By that i mean making sure houses built in areas at risk of flooding are built with some form of protection, be that on stilts or the first floor starting above a garage and such. I was under the impression that it's Governments that set the rules and local councils that enforce them.
I take it you're talking about the recent events in the southern portion of the US. If so, it's worth pointing out that a lot of the chaos was caused not by snow but by ice. Simply put, large swaths of the south don't often experience the effects of rapid freezing similar to what has happened the past few weeks. It rarely happens, so there is not much incentive to spend the recurring cost to cover the infrastructure to deal with it (e.g. no plows, no salt/sand trucks, people don't have winter tires or snow chains). Part of the reason there were so many problems in Atlanta is because nobody headed the warnings ahead of time because, as you stated, it's just a couple inches of snow and some cold air. Then when things got bad the mayor shut down the city all at once in the middle of the day, which means everyone simultaneously hit the icy roads trying to get home. Rush hour is bad enough as it is, but when you add inclement weather conditions things are bound to go wrong.
Well it's certainly not my responsibility. I choose to exercise my right not to live in a flood plain, that way I can sit atop my small hillock and watch those less savvy folks get washed away.
I'm not aware of a privatisation of flood defences...yet. But it's happening to healthcare and education, slowly but surely, and the Environment Agency has been experiencing cuts to funding despite the increasing flood risk the country faces over the next century. We shall see...
Think about the trees, man! Think about the trees!!! Leftist hippy enough for ya? If it's any consolation, I think all governments are to some extent corrupt, short-sighted and demagogic. As for whether it is the government's fault... In the years 2006-2010 under New Labour there was a 33% increase in spending on flood defenses. Under the Con-Lib coalition it has been cut by 8% --or if you want to take the 2006 baseline, 22%. But since you bring up the privatisation of flood defences, ask not for whom the bell tolls. And who are the Ecosystem Markets Task Force? Why, it was a task force set up by the current government in 2011. But rest easy. Not right now, was the government's reply in September 2013. Then again, who knows? You mean the Conservative and New Labour local governments? That's the ones I was talking about, right?
