After the massive floods, a deluge of criticism
SOME RESIDENTS HAVE LOST EVERYTHING AS FLOOD DEFENCES BOLSTERED AFTER PREVIOUS DISASTERS FAIL TO STOP INUNDATION OF CUMBRIA, NORTHERN ENGLAND
Two days after the River Derwent breached flood defences last weekend, residents of Derwentside Gardens in Cockermouth were finally allowed back into their homes. The floodwaters had receded, leaving a dirty layer of mud and silt across oak floors, carpets and ruined rugs. With no electricity or running water, few planned to stay long. The fire service wouldn’t let them drive their cars on to the estate so they salvaged what they could carry on foot: sentimental paintings, favourite vases, medication, Christmas presents they had managed to move from under the tree up on to kitchen work surfaces when the evacuation warning came last Saturday at teatime.
Up Gote Brow they trudged in their cagoules and wellies, past homes on Gote Road still underwater, eerie orange Xs spray-painted on the windows by lifeboat teams to show there was no one left stuck inside.
Cumbria police estimate between 400 and 700 homes and businesses in Cockermouth have been flooded. Many said they didn’t expect to be back in their homes for six months, let alone Christmas — “That’s how long it took last time,” said one woman. “Maybe this time the water was only two foot-deep instead of three-foot deep but it does the same damage.”
Another woman cried. “I’m 66 years old. I’ve got chronic health problems. I can’t go through this again.”
Earlier flooding
In November 2009, it was the river Cocker which caused an estimated £276.5m (Dh1.54 billion) of damage in the west Cumbrian town after rising 2.5 metres when 314mm of rain fell in one 24-hour period. This time it was the Derwent that breached the defences that were supposed to protect the town from “one in 100-year floods” — barriers a government minister promised in 2013 would “give residents peace of mind for the future”.
But the defences were a cruel deception. On Monday afternoon 218 homes in Cockermouth remained without power, according to Electricity North-West. Many residents were angry, some blaming the gate operators at Thirlmear reservoir, others directing their ire at the Environment Agency.
Some, like Tessa Milner, said they were just “numb”. Outside her bungalow on Derwentside Gardens, she was clearing up her third major flood in 11 years: her first, in 2005, was near Carlisle; the second was in Cockermouth in 2009, when she was living in a terraced house on Waterloo Street in the town centre. “That was bad — water up to ceiling height,” she said. “But I was only renting. We’ve bought this place.” The only good thing about being flooded again is that you know how to cope, she said.
“I feel like I know what I’m doing this time. I know how to talk to loss adjusters on the phone. Before, I was lost. I feel like a bit of a pro now.”
She and her partner, David Cockburn, and 12-year-old son Harrison left just before the Derwent came rushing down their street. They managed to put the cat, two motorbikes and Harrison’s favourite guitar in their van before escaping to her dad’s place. In town, her jewellery shop, Andessa, had also been flooded, the filthy water seeping into the safe where she had stored her most expensive products.
Many residents thought they would be OK this time, having installed blue floodguards on their front doors when they were evacuated last Saturday afternoon. They weren’t. “There’s nothing much you can do. Sandbags: a waste of time. We found that last time,” said Ray Page, who said it cost £180,000 to repair his three-storey home and replace all the family’s ravaged possessions in 2009. This time, they knew to move their cars to higher ground, emptied all cupboards at floor level and piled their most expensive furniture on the cheap stuff.
His wife, Miriam, was philosophical about their situation. “Well, what can you do? They’re only possessions. We can replace them. We can get the house rebuilt again.”
The Pages are insured. Others weren’t so lucky. Natalie Taylor, 46, moved into a rented ground floor flat in the converted Derwent Mill after the 2009 floods and said she couldn’t get contents insurance. “We’ve lost it all,” she said. “Furniture, white goods. All we’ve been able to rescue is a bag of damp clothes.”
She knew about the previous floodings, but had to live on the ground floor because her two children, Grant, 21, and Martina, 19, both have physical disabilities. Grant, who has a muscle wasting disease, was limping up a muddy path on crutches on Monday. He said he nearly came a cropper last Saturday when their street turned into a river.
Rising waters
“I had to throw myself on the car bonnet, the waters were rising that quick. I didn’t think the car would start, but it did — that’s why you buy a Volvo, I suppose.”
On Monday afternoon workers from Cumbria county council were going from doorto-door checking on elderly residents, while electricians from Electricity North-West began repairing sodden fuse boxes ready for the power to be restored. Two ladies from Chuches Together, a coalition of local churches, were offering support, and telling residents that they could go to the reception centre at Christ Church for a brew. “We’ve been here before,” said one volunteer. “We just want to let people know we know what they are going through, and we are here for them.”
The floods that have wrought devastation on houses in the centre of Carlisle appear to have brought out the best and worst in people, as locals warned of looters targeting evacuated homes near the town’s partially-submerged football ground. Michael Johnson, 60, a semiretired house designer who was evacuated at the weekend, said he was afraid to leave his floodravaged house after neighbours said looters were on the lookout for empty properties.
“The saddest thing ever is that I’ve been warned not to leave my property because thieves are in the area. This is from neighbours who say they’re not local thieves, they’re coming from outside,” he said. “It’s like being hit and then kicked when you’re down.”
A Cumbria police spokesman said extra patrols had been set up to put residents at ease, following a number of looting reports during the 2005 floods. He added police had not received
reports of looting this year.
The warning came as a team of up to 50 volunteers — many driving eight hours from Cornwall and Somerset last Saturday — were deployed to rescue victims from their homes on Carlisle’s badly-hit Warwick Road on the banks of the swollen River Petteril. Police estimate between 2,200 and 3,500 homes in Carlisle have been affected by the floods. Lifeguard trainer Sam Bailey, 24, a volunteer unit manager of Surf Life Saving GB’s Wessex flood rescue service, said he had slept for only three hours since last Friday night, when his team on the south coast were put on alert to help out at the opposite end of the country.
“You see a lot of people breaking down as you’re rescuing them and bringing them back to dry land,” Bailey said, taking his first break of the day by a hot food stall run by Carlisle-based Lakeland Steaks, dishing out free beef burgers, sausage butties and steak sandwiches to the emergency services working round the clock.
“Their whole houses have been destroyed. It’s quite humbling for us — I managed to go out on the boat today and I was driving along thinking these poor people. The water was still up to their doors and their cars and belongings in the street. I must have seen about 20 written-off cars in this street alone.” By Monday lunchtime, around 100 people had been rescued from flooded properties around Warwick road, he said, on top of between 200 and 300 over the weekend. One of those rescued was Neil Sutton, 60, the owner of Cherry Grove Guest House. He had to evacuate his guests in the dawn darkness last Saturday morning. Finally on Monday he was able to return to survey the damage. “All the ground floor’s ruined,” he said. When will he be able to reopen? “How long’s a piece of string? We’re hoping for Easter. We have bookings for January but that’s not going to happen.”
Sutton added: “We’ve had the floods, we’ve had foot and mouth, all we need now is a plague of locusts.”
Some blame bad luck
Bad luck is a sentiment keenly felt in these parts. Michael Johnson moved to this street from a flood zone in Morpeth, Northumberland, last October after being reassured by the council and estate agents, he says, that the flood defences meant there would not be a repeat of the 2005 floods.
“I was confident after asking around that it definitely wouldn’t happen again,” he said on the front door of his property, from which 9,000 litres of floodwater were pumped on Monday. He now wants to sell his £300,000 three-floor Victorian terrace house, but fears he would not be able to sell it for above £180,000.
Johnson said: “The problem is who’s going to buy a house that’s been flooded twice in 10 years?”