AFTER FLOODS ... BRACE FOR ICE AND SNOW
Health alerts as big freeze strikes
BRITAIN is braced for a bitter icy blast after last week’s deluge as an amber cold health alert is issued for large parts of the country.
Snow and ice are forecast early this week as temperatures plummet.
It comes as many communities are still coping with the severe floods that followed Storm Henk.
And now health chiefs and the Met Office predict that wintery conditions will bring more misery.
An amber cold health alert for the North West of England, West Midlands, East Midlands and South West England, issued by the UK Health Security Agency and the Met Office, runs until 12pm next Friday.
It means “cold weather impacts are likely to be felt across the whole health service for an extended period”. There is also a yellow cold health alert for the North East of England, Yorkshire and the Humber, East England, South East England and London.
Cold weather can increase the risks of heart attacks, strokes and chest infections and affect the elderly and those with preexisting conditions.
Dr Agostinho Sousa, head of extreme events and health protection at UKHSA, said: “It is important to check in on the wellbeing of those most vulnerable to the cold. Try to heat rooms where you spend most of your time.”
The Environment Agency has estimated more than 1,800 properties were flooded after Henk, with 172 flood warnings and 176 flood alerts in place yesterday in England. Labour said the Government had been “asleep at the wheel” over the floods. Rishi Sunak said: “We have invested £5.2billion in flood defences, a record sum.” A man aged 40 and a boy of 16 died after a car was submerged in the Louth Canal, Tetney, Lincs, on Saturday.
OH for the winter days of childhood!
Snow falling as we gather round the gaslight at the bottom of the street.
Slides on the downhill pavement, much to the annoyance of parents who say (rightly) that they’re a health hazard.
Would kids today know how to make a slide? Repeated runs on compacted snow, until the run glistened with hard, black ice. Running with a crouch to avoid falling over, and slamming into each other.
Instead of winter, we have a monsoon season. Continuous rain, day after day, week after week.
Here, the Aire Valley does its job as a flood plain, with vast tracts under water, in places several feet deep.
I know that’s what it’s supposed to do but we could do with a bit more plain and a little less flood. Only the mysterious flocks of gulls that appear with the inundation, and disappear when the water does, like this almost-tropical weather.
On the allotment nothing stirs except a few weeds, but in my back yard the heather is blooming and the magnolia tree sprouted buds within hours of the leaves falling.
Nature doesn’t seem to know how to handle the weather, which makes two of us. The mercury fell over the weekend, but not cold enough for snow. There wasn’t o’ermuch festivity in our household over the holiday.
Mrs R and I had the winter bug, and brother John, 85, couldn’t come for Christmas dinner for fear of catching the thing.
As it says on the tin, Life Goes On all right, but sometimes it’s more of a struggle than is entirely necessary.
Still, here we are, in 2024. Another year to get into all sorts of happy bother.