UK high winds and floods.

[X-Seti]

I decided to post this because no one really has...

 

My point is this, if you were in charge of a country with an aging infrastructure and limited funds what would you do?

 

Remember the UK gives £11 billion per year in foreign aid. I feel that we do not look after our own most of the time and the governments priorities are out of sync with what the country really needs. For example, HS2 (High Speed Rail 2) is going to be very expensive to build and too expensive for the the average wage earner to use. It's a rich mans train set. I feel somewhat relieved that we have moved from the South Coast to Shropshire in December. What about those people who are not so lucky though? I feel very bad for all of the people who have been flooded as I know what it is like to lose almost everything you own.

 

A lot of people are pointing fingers in blame but at the heart of it all it's nature at its worse and whatever we try and do you can't beat nature. Nor is it possible to help everyone in need at once like the stories I've listened to on the news. It's happened and now we have to deal with it.

 

It is high time that the government took a good look at the country and realize that they are wasting the tax payers money on useless things like the HS2 and foreign aid.

 

They need to actually start caring about their country in deeds done, not just speaking in platitudes. The country is one step away from literally sinking into the drink. We don't need to spend money on these useless things, they need to stop for the foreseeable future and the money put to helping ALL those affected in the country by the floods. There also needs to be major improvements to defenses and up to date preventative measures put in place to help lessen the devastation when the rains come again. The time for complacency is long over.

 

Comments please.

[GTA 360]

My point is this, if you were in charge of a country with an aging infrastructure and limited funds what would you do?

 

A lot of people are pointing fingers in blame but at the heart of it all it's nature at its worse and whatever we try and do you can't beat nature. Nor is it possible to help everyone in need at once like the stories I've listened to on the news. It's happened and now we have to deal with it.

 

Comments please.

I would leave Europe, send all the foreigners back where they came from, stop all foreign aid and build our own country up. We need to do something to help ourselves for once in a while.

 

You say we can't stop nature but look at Holland, they put their money where it was needed and reclaimed all that land and it's still dry enough isn't it?

[sivispacem]

I would leave Europe, send all the foreigners back where they came from, stop all foreign aid and build our own country up. We need to do something to help ourselves for once in a while.

It would be so easy to dismiss comments like this as ignorant and bigoted. So I will.

[Mr. House]

 

My point is this, if you were in charge of a country with an aging infrastructure and limited funds what would you do?

 

A lot of people are pointing fingers in blame but at the heart of it all it's nature at its worse and whatever we try and do you can't beat nature. Nor is it possible to help everyone in need at once like the stories I've listened to on the news. It's happened and now we have to deal with it.

 

Comments please.

I would leave Europe, send all the foreigners back where they came from, stop all foreign aid and build our own country up. We need to do something to help ourselves for once in a while.

 

You say we can't stop nature but look at Holland, they put their money where it was needed and reclaimed all that land and it's still dry enough isn't it?

 

lmfao.

 

That's amazing, shoving racist anti immigrant rhetoric in a subject about flooding. I appreciate the effort, I really do.

[X-Seti]

 

I would leave Europe, send all the foreigners back where they came from, stop all foreign aid and build our own country up. We need to do something to help ourselves for once in a while.

It would be so easy to dismiss comments like this as ignorant and bigoted. So I will.

 

 

Clarify for me why you want to send 'All the foreigners back where they came from.'? What have they done (or not done) to you? Or is it just as the moderator stated, an ignorant and bigoted comment with no basis in fact that you are spewing? My wife is from a foreign country.

 

Edit, Annoyed...

Edited February 12, 2014 by X-Seti

[Mr. House]

I want to say however, that I find it amusing that for generally middle class conservative voting towns, 'money is no issue' on helping them out for actions against their control, yet the working class needs to 'tighten it's belt' and we're all in it together' and other sh*t slogans that I've bleached from memory.

[Mr Rabbit]

Stoke here. Storms have calmed where i am. Was insane this morning seen worse in yorkshire. But dowm south worst floods in 250 years i was told my some red cross volunteer.

Crops infected with salmonella and the like. Sounds bad and would explain my illness if some produce came through before they discovered it. Help is needed down there

[AJ Lee]

Fine here

[Kirsty]

Completely random weather in the Midlands. We had torrential rain all morning yesterday, then a sudden flurry of snow and then sunshine! Although it was still bitter cold. Today it was dry in the morning, then a really bad wind storm, and then sunshine again. Walking home from work a bit later it started hailing, it was really sharp on my face...

 

Have to feel for those down south and where ever else is affected by floods though. Complete devastation and mess for homes and businesses. I read all sorts of comments in the Metro newspaper this morning about using some of the foreign aid for flood prevention. Something like it would have cost £4 million to dredge a river in a particularly bad area but the environmental agency refused. It does make you wonder why weather like is pretty much a common occurrence each year now but still no proper prevention in place for a majority of towns near rivers, but then it's all over the paper how Mr Cameron is saying money is no object.

[Hodgey.]

The wind really picked up around here (Near Warrington) and it rained for a little while but nothing more than that.

[X-Seti]

money is no object

 

Completely random weather in the Midlands. We had torrential rain all morning yesterday, then a sudden flurry of snow and then sunshine! Although it was still bitter cold. Today it was dry in the morning, then a really bad wind storm, and then sunshine again. Walking home from work a bit later it started hailing, it was really sharp on my face...

 

Have to feel for those down south and where ever else is affected by floods though. Complete devastation and mess for homes and businesses. I read all sorts of comments in the Metro newspaper this morning about using some of the foreign aid for flood prevention. Something like it would have cost £4 million to dredge a river in a particularly bad area but the environmental agency refused. It does make you wonder why weather like is pretty much a common occurrence each year now but still no proper prevention in place for a majority of towns near rivers, but then it's all over the paper how Mr Cameron is saying money is no object.

 

Money is no object? Whats the catch.

 

This gets me worried about how they might get that back with the 4 years of cuts to services. We have 2 more storms that I could see on the way 2 days apart from one another.

Edited February 12, 2014 by X-Seti

[Mr. House]

money is no object

 

Completely random weather in the Midlands. We had torrential rain all morning yesterday, then a sudden flurry of snow and then sunshine! Although it was still bitter cold. Today it was dry in the morning, then a really bad wind storm, and then sunshine again. Walking home from work a bit later it started hailing, it was really sharp on my face...

 

Have to feel for those down south and where ever else is affected by floods though. Complete devastation and mess for homes and businesses. I read all sorts of comments in the Metro newspaper this morning about using some of the foreign aid for flood prevention. Something like it would have cost £4 million to dredge a river in a particularly bad area but the environmental agency refused. It does make you wonder why weather like is pretty much a common occurrence each year now but still no proper prevention in place for a majority of towns near rivers, but then it's all over the paper how Mr Cameron is saying money is no object.

 

Money is no object? Whats the catch.

The catch is you vote for them in the next election.

[JonnyVercetti]

I'm down in kent, we've been told we will not go back to normal for up to 3 months.

 

we've lost hundreds of homes, businesses destroyed and we've had landslides.

 

end of the world!

[Mark]

money is no object

 

 

Completely random weather in the Midlands. We had torrential rain all morning yesterday, then a sudden flurry of snow and then sunshine! Although it was still bitter cold. Today it was dry in the morning, then a really bad wind storm, and then sunshine again. Walking home from work a bit later it started hailing, it was really sharp on my face...

 

Have to feel for those down south and where ever else is affected by floods though. Complete devastation and mess for homes and businesses. I read all sorts of comments in the Metro newspaper this morning about using some of the foreign aid for flood prevention. Something like it would have cost £4 million to dredge a river in a particularly bad area but the environmental agency refused. It does make you wonder why weather like is pretty much a common occurrence each year now but still no proper prevention in place for a majority of towns near rivers, but then it's all over the paper how Mr Cameron is saying money is no object.

 

Money is no object? Whats the catch.

 

This gets me worried about how they might get that back with the 4 years of cuts to services. We have 2 more storms that I could see on the way 2 days apart from one another.

Aye it's due to get much worse. Heavy rain all tomorrow in an already saturated area.

 

They'll likely get the money back from the helping out here by refusing to dredge and prepare again. Vicious circle.

 

Ironically there's stockpiles of winter grit for the suspected snow, thanks to the last few years of crap weather!

[Stephan90]

I would be a pretty badass leader of a state. I would only give money to all the poorer states, if I can mine their natural ressources for my economy in exchange.

Edited February 13, 2014 by Stephan90

[RoadRunner71]

I wonder if there would be mass immigration if these countries where they come to hadn't been looting for years the origin places of the immigrants.

[RedDagger]

Why cut the foreign aid? What's wrong with all the other billions being more liberally spent? It just seems like a pretty xenophobic (not exactly, but I don't know the word for it) thing to do. Which means I'm not surprised the Daily Mail is supporting doing it. This is money being used to majorly help less well-off countries that - despite the flooding - are still less well off than the fairly well off south of England (north is getting a bit if a battering as well, but I haven't seen flooding reported). Not to forget that the June '07 flooding cost £3b, and that wasn't preceded by a huge amount of news coverage like we're getting now with all the politicians going out in droves, so they're probably willing to throw more money at the problem. I couldn't say how much different it is to the 2007 floods, but if the costs are around the same or higher that's a large amount cutting into the foreign aid budget. That just ain't right.

[GambleGamble]

"wasting taxpayers money on useless things like foreign aid"?

It's so useless helping people that have nothing to eat and are living in the middle of war zones.

The government should be cleaning up this rainwater in England!

 

hint: sarcasm

[GTA_stu]

You say we can't stop nature but look at Holland, they put their money where it was needed and reclaimed all that land and it's still dry enough isn't it?

 

Yh but it made sense for them to build all those big fancy sea defences, because half of their land area is less then a meter above sea level, and a fifth is below sea level. If they didn't build the defences then Poseidon would have washed their windmills into the sea. They didn't really have a choice, they were pretty much forced into building those defences. The same way Scandinavian countries are forced to build their infrastructure in such a way as to be able to deal effectively with the snow and ice. The cost is justified by the benefits for them.

 

If the UK took the same measures as Sweden or Norway in dealing with the snow, we might have more trains running on time in the winter but our tax bills would rise significantly and it wouldn't be worth it. Same thing with Dutch style sea defences. But it's not even coastal flooding that's the main problem in this case, it's river flooding. So even if we had a ring of steel keeping out the sea, it wouldn't do much good.

 

This is the most rain that some places have had since records began. There's not much that you can do when a freak event like this happens apart from deal with it as best you can when it does happen. You can't really prevent it from happening unless you want to spend ridiculous amounts of money.

Edited February 13, 2014 by stu

[johnny_zoo]

What I find unfair is the residents coming out and blaming tj government for not providing for this eventuality. It's not their fault it started raining, they can't control the weather. Not to mention things haven't been this bad for 250 years. So it's not like they had any data to suggest this might happen.

 

Te blame lies totally with the people who insisted on buying a house within an area prone to flooding. They are not stupid they knew the risks before moving to that area. So when a flood does happen they turn around and look for a scape goat. Anyone but themselves. What are the gov meant to do build an altar and pray for no rain? Because that's the only thing that will stop the flooding. Sandbags can only do so much.

[sivispacem]

Yeah, to be brutally honest I struggle with the idea that government inaction is to blame for thousands of people buying houses on flood planes.

[Rebel]

As people have said the Midlands has been pretty weird for weather. No flooding in the part I'm in, just really bad rain, wind and some snow/sleet and then sunshine. Has been pretty cold throughout it all though. Its just started raining here and its meant to get pretty intense into the evening. The only thing that worries me is the wind picking up. I live in a house over 100 years old, and it wouldn't surprise me if part of the roof came off or even the chimney. I'll worry about it when it happens though. Right now I'm just glad we've been lucky and not been f*cked over.

 

Its awful to see how bad it is in the flood areas. Then again, I could never buy a house in a flood prone area. And if I really wanted to live there, I'd probably build my own house and put it on a high elevation like stilts or some sh*t to at least cope with the floods when they do hit. Its a shame though. I've heard that the environment agency basically stopped dredging the area's affected though because they didn't deem it as necessary, or whatever else. To be fair, I've kept out of the news when it comes to the environment agency and the government when they talk about the floods. Even if better procedures were in place and things still flooded I'm sure they'd still be to blame.

 

The only thing that disappoints me when I hear/see about it now is the fact there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of action going on for some of the more smaller villages affected. Seems like its just a lot of local volunteers (and people who live far away) that have started to try and get through it while there's not enough government/army/police there. But I'm sure it will change. Its just nice to see people pulling together when sh*t hits the fan since you barely see it these days. There's also nothing worse than seeing people in their flooded homes crying/breaking down when they are talking about the damage done to the homes they have.

[johnny_zoo]

As people have said the Midlands has been pretty weird for weather. No flooding in the part I'm in, just really bad rain, wind and some snow/sleet and then sunshine. Has been pretty cold throughout it all though. Its just started raining here and its meant to get pretty intense into the evening. The only thing that worries me is the wind picking up. I live in a house over 100 years old, and it wouldn't surprise me if part of the roof came off or even the chimney. I'll worry about it when it happens though. Right now I'm just glad we've been lucky and not been f*cked over.

 

Which part of the midlands are you in?

[GTA_stu]

I remember when my house got flooded in 2007. My family including the dog had to be rescued by a coastguard boat lol.I feel sorry for the people down south that are affected. Being flooded is really stressful. It's like being burgled by a river. It takes months and months to get everything fixed because you have to not only redecorate and have work done to your house, but you can't even start that work until the moisture is completely out of your walls and everything is dry. And that takes a lot longer than you'd think.

[epoxi]

Johnny Zoo has a point.

 

The weather for the past decade has proven that taking any sort of preventative action is a waste of time.

 

For years we'd have a short period of severe snow and people have always been calling for more gritters etc. Now we've spent the money on gritters and snow contingency plans, there's no snow!

 

Next year after a £2bn investment in flooding defences we'll probably have a drought instead.

 

People are up in arms about how the government isn't looking after them but:

1. You built your house on a flood plain

2. The cost of repair doesn't outweigh the cost of prevention

3. This weather is acute and in 2 weeks we will have forgotten all about it (probably we'll be under snow instead haha)

4. No one could have possibly predicted this weather and there's no reason the government should have prepared for it apart from hindsight

 

And to people saying cut foreign aid, you clearly don't understand how the world works:

1. Your new carpets which represent 1% of your income don't compare to feeding a human being

2. That aid is in your social, political and economic interest to stop people bombing your country/army

3. That aid also stabilises (or at least tries to stabilise) the global economy which works in everyone's interest

4. If the only way to fund these defences was cutting YOUR welfare or raising YOUR taxes, you'd be singing a completely different tune.

 

Sorry to break it down into sloppy bullet points, but I hope this at least makes people think about what they are saying.

Edited February 14, 2014 by epoxi

[Smith John]

...but you can't even start that work until the moisture is completely out of your walls and everything is dry. And that takes a lot longer than you'd think.

Much longer and challenging if the process is reversed. And the assignment happens to be an 8th anniversary you're trying to rescue and salvage.