Floods: How prepared is Cumbria for the winter?

When it comes to fighting floods, Cumbria has more battles behind it than most.

Places including Carlisle, Cockermouth, Eden, west Cumbria and parts of the south of the county all carry the scars.

This weekend the now familiar sight of streets submerged and emergency patrols engaged in an operation to help stricken residents returned to our county.

Millom was the focal point of the efforts, with homes hit following torrential downpours on Saturday.

A massive relief operation took place after more than 200 homes were flooded. Rain had overwhelmed drains in a matter of hours.

In that part of Cumbria the recovery operation is in place.

And for the county as a whole, those who are sent to help those in need are poised for the next extreme weather event.

Superintendent Mark Pannone was in charge of the police response at Millom - and is a veteran of such operations.
Holborn Hill, in Millom

"Unfortunately our response has been tried and tested here in Cumbria," he said.

"We know in Cumbria we can very quickly be affected by weather - be it rain, flooding, snow.

"This can lead to damage to infrastructure, rail and road.

"We have to be assured our civil contingencies are in place.

"We practice and train constantly through the year and we do that with other agencies.

"We run through problems in peacetime so that when things are bad we give the best possible response we can."

Superintendent Mark Pannone Supt Pannone said that typically it was the police who found out first about any problems, working then to pull all the relevant agencies together.

Within 30 minutes, organisations including Cumbria County Council, the Environment Agency, the Coastguard, the fire and rescue service and wider government agencies will become involved.

The operation will focus on various situations and problems.

These include setting up rendezvous points, assessing whether refuge centres are needing, working out if sandbags would help, making sure drains are cleared and, crucially, making sure vulnerable people are supported.

"This system is in place all year round," said Supt Pannone.

Police prepare for various situations as well as floods, including bad crashes closing down the motorway - or serious fires.

"We have action plans for them," added Supt Pannone.

"We have a dedicated unit called the civil contingencies unit.

"Its sole purpose is to plan for unfortunate circumstances, to support other agencies to make sure their action plans are as good as they can be.

"We are recognised in lots of ways as best practice; purely because of the experience we have.

"In Cumbria we believe that we are good at responding to these kind of incidents.

"Regrettably, we have to respond to weather incidents too often."

He added: "What I would like people to take away from any incident like this is the reassurance that we are working together.

"We do know what we are doing."

Pensioner fears return of flooding

Anne Reay, 72, describes the effects of the 2015 floods in Carlisle as "life changing".
Anne Reay from Warwick Road, Carlisle

The pensioner fled upstairs with family as floodwater poured into her home in Warwick Road.

She is back in her house now and is thinking of having a metal barrier put on her door - but fears floods could still hit again.

Reflecting on the effects of the floods, she said: "There is a lot involved in it and the stress of it is horrendous

"It took two years of my life."

She said the waters reached 9ft in her home.

"We had two rivers flowing into our properties here," she said.

"I can't tell you what goes through your mind as you hear the water rising.

"It was horrific here in the evening.

"You could hear the water swishing at the walls and you could hear the sound of every insect normally found down by a river.

"You could hear crickets, you could hear frogs.

"It's horrendous but there were a lot of people isolated. We kept each other company, which helps."

On the future, she added: "It's happened twice. Weather patterns are changing. I think, yes - it will happen again."

Investment in flood defences

Enviorment Agency working on the river Greta, Keswick The Environment Agency says it is investing up to £72m in flood defences in Cumbria over the next four years.

Its officials say this will better protect more than 4,300 homes.

This, the agency adds, includes an additional £58m allocated after the 2015 floods.

A spokeswoman said: "Last year we spent over £1m in Cumbria to repair damaged defences and restore protection to communities following the floods of December 2015.

"We are prepared to take action wherever it is needed."

The agency says it has improved its flood response nationally – investing in new kit.

This includes 40km of temporary flood barriers and 250 high volume pumps.

"We have 6,500 staff trained to respond to incidents and 500 flood support officers," she added.

"It’s our priority to do everything we can to reduce flood risk.
Highways England has completed flood resilience work on the A66 alongside Bassenthwaite Lake Image: Highways England

"We are spending more than £2.5 billion to build flood schemes around the country, which will better protect 300,000 homes by 2021."

The agency also says over the last 10 years it has invested in 1,176 flood schemes around the country, providing increased protection to more than 480,000 properties.

"We send flood warnings to more than 1.26 million people across the country – giving them vital time to prepare," added the spokeswoman.

Highways England has also carried out flood resilience work on the A66.

For more information on flood alerts, visitwww.gov.uk/flood.

Storm Desmond: What happened?

The Carlisle floods of 2015. Floods swamped homes and destroyed businesses, leaving streets under water.

Carlisle, Cockermouth and Keswick were among the worst-hit areas.

Police declared a major incident and dramatic scenes saw people rescued from their houses and evacuated from danger areas.

Floods first rose in Appleby and Keswick, followed by Cockermouth and Carlisle.