BRITAIN Record number of flood alerts follow fierce storm
LONDON — Storm Dennis roared across Britain with high winds and heavy rains Sunday, prompting authorities to issue a record number of flood warnings and alerts for England and a rare “red warning” for extremely lifethreatening flooding in Wales.
The Met Office, Britain’s meteorological service, only issues its highest red warning when it believes there’s a “risk to life” and that people must take immediate action to protect themselves. It was the first time a red warning has been sounded since December 2015.
Four hours later, the south Wales alert was downgraded to “amber,” which still warns of significant impact and a “potential risk to life.”
The Met Office said the highest wind gust recorded was 91 mph at Aberdaron in north Wales on Saturday. It also said a total of 6.1 inches of rain fell in the Welsh county of Powys over 48 hours.
Hundreds of flights were canceled and train service was repeatedly disrupted.
A man died after falling into the swollen River Tawe in South Wales. The River Taff burst its banks in the Welsh town of Pontypool and severe flood warnings were issued for the River Teme.
A total of 375 flood warnings were in place Sunday across the U.K., from the north of Scotland down to Cornwall in southwestern England.
After a month’s worth of rain in the last 48 hours, John Curtin of the Environment Agency said in a tweet that England has the most flood warnings and lowerlevel alerts in force — 594 — than on any other day on record.
Flood warnings could remain in place for a while since much of Britain is still saturated from last week’s Storm Ciara, which left eight people dead across Europe. Storm Dennis already has been blamed for the deaths of two men who were pulled Saturday from the sea in separate searches off England’s southeastern coast.