Floods
Catastrophe drill to test emergency servicesGuardian Unlimited | 07 Mar 2011Exercise Watermark will involve 10,000 people from police to prison officers in testing emergency flood response. Flash floods will drown London and Yorkshire, a major reservoir will blow out in Derbyshire, rivers will burst their banks from the Thames valley to Wales and a tidal surge will swamp the east coast in the armageddon scenario underpinning Britain's biggest ever civil emergency exercise.
England | Extreme Weather | Floods Flood defence spending: Where are the gaps?Guardian Unlimited | 20 Jan 2011Once more unto the breach, dear friends, that is the government's cuts to flood and coastal defence spending. I need your help to reveal the impact the cuts will have on new defences because, as it stands, just weeks from the new financial year, no-one knows. Below, I'll relate the farcical example of the funding for the proposed coastal defences in Felixstowe town and how the Prime Minister, David Cameron, appears to be more worried by flooding abroad than at home.
United Kingdom | Extreme Weather | Floods | Policy Weatherwatch: Floods and fireGuardian Unlimited | 07 Dec 2010Last week saw flooding in many different parts of the globe. In Australia, Melbourne was hit by storms on Wednesday, with Melbourne airport receiving 30mm of rainfall in just 30 minutes. There was widespread flooding in New South Wales over the weekend. Many people were evacuated from their homes in Wagga Wagga and Coonamble, with flooding on the Castlereagh and Murrumbidgee rivers expected to peak yesterday.
England | United Kingdom | Climate Change | Extreme Weather | Floods How to spin a £616m cut on flood defencesGuardian Unlimited | 24 Nov 2010The prime minister said spending is broadly even, the environment secretary said there's an 8% cut, the environment agency said the cut is 27%. What's going on? Sometimes, dear reader, I have to do things so you don't. In this case it was literally to give myself a headache trying to work out what...
United Kingdom | Economy | Floods Thousands of new trees for flood-hit CumbriaGuardian Unlimited | 19 Nov 2010Cumbria's natural flood defences shored up with tree-planting campaign. Thousands of trees are being planted on land hit by last year's floods in Cumbria to help provide "natural" flood protection in the future, the Woodland Trust said today. Around 2,000 locally sourced native species of tree are...
England | Floods | Woodlands Cornwall flooding: villagers' storiesGuardian Unlimited | 17 Nov 2010Leo Hickman speaks to Lostwithiel residents affected by the worst flash flood to hit the Cornish town in living memory. A lone silk shoe lies abandoned in the inch-deep brown slick carpeting the floor at Fantasia Bridal on Queen Street. The sign above the rack of muddied wedding dresses still...
England | Floods | Local Issues Video | Pakistan floods: Refugees in KarachiGuardian Unlimited | 08 Oct 2010Declan Walsh travels to a former rice warehouse in Karachi that is acting as a temporary home for refugees left homeless by last month's floods. With low food supplies, poor sanitation and reports of corruption in the compensation system, the provincial government is struggling to provide for the victims.
Disasters | Environmental Awareness | Education