The 'bereavement' of the floods

By Sarah Mukherjee
Environment correspondent, BBC News

The report said there are areas for improvement in dealing with floods

The Environment Agency has published its report into the lessons learned from the experience of this summer's floods.

While, on the whole, the report says the agency performed well during a time of unprecedented rainfall, it believes there are many areas that could be significantly improved.

Many people have described it as a kind of bereavement. Recent decorations and improvements, wedding photos, treasured family heirlooms or mementos, school projects - all washed away forever and sometimes in a matter of minutes.

People are still suffering. The agency's chairman, Sir John Harman, warned that in the run up to Christmas, "this is an ongoing experience for many people".

The main concern of those who have compiled the report is that so much of the flooding was because urban drainage systems were overwhelmed.

Preparedness

No-one has overall responsibility for this surface water - the water that runs off hard-standing and concrete very quickly.

It is something the agency is keen to take on. Engineers and flood managers say it would allow local authorities and other organisations - like water companies - to plan locally and work together to manage the risk.

Barbara Young said "the sky fell in" on July 23rd

Another major concern was the preparedness - or more precisely the lack of it - of the major utility companies for the floods.

"The extreme flooding in the summer showed just how poorly protected much of our vital public infrastructure - such as roads, railways utilities police and fire service premises, healthcare facilities and others - is," says the report.

It continues: "It was clear that water and electricity supplies were particularly vulnerable."

Thousands of people were left without power and tens of thousands without water, as power and water stations were overwhelmed over the summer.

The agency says it wants the government to amend the Climate Change Bill to ensure that utilities and other public bodies take climate change and more extreme weather events into account to ensure, as the agency's Chief Executive Barbara Young put it, "some decent, hard-nosed planning".

The agency is also aware how important it is that the public can get the information they need when they need it.

'The sky fell in'

The report says, "radio broadcasts are the minimum standard of warning in areas where many people live and work.

It was the sort of rain you would expect once in every three of four generations. How much do we want to invest to protect ourselves against events like that? Barbara Young Environment Agency

"We also use loud hailers and sirens in some areas. People were confused about the purpose and role of sirens in Lincolnshire during the floods and also who operates them."

It goes on to say that in Sheffield, "routes that the vehicle-mounted loudhailers planned to use were flooded by surface water and were impassable".

Barbara Young explained how important it was to have enough people staffing the phones "on July 23rd, when, quite frankly, the sky fell in".

The agency feels the level of funding for flood defence from the government is increasing along the right lines - although other bodies, like the Association of British Insurers, have been highly critical of what they say are low levels of cash for this area.

But privately, water engineers say the amount you could spend is infinite - it depends on how much you think is worth it.

As Barbara Young put it: "It was the sort of rain you would expect once in every three of four generations. How much do we want to invest to protect ourselves against events like that?"