The Guardian - 03.08.2019

Section:GDN 1N PaGe:7 Edition Date:190803 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 2/8/2019 18:29 cYanmaGentaYellowbla

Saturday 3 August 2019 The Guardian •

7

lifetime: ‘I am an evacuee,’” she said.
“But here we are.”
On Thursday afternoon, Jade was
having a typically exhausting day
at home. She’d had kids’ TV on all
morning, busy with the unending
list of chores that come with small
children. She had no idea of the
drama unfolding a few minutes’
walk away until Jan rang her in a
panic.
She grabbed the babies and, as
humans and animals have done
instinctively since primeval times,
took them to higher ground: the top
of Whaley Lane, a steep road out of
the town where her in-laws live.
As soon as Jan arrived, they
went back to fetch sterilisers for
the babies’ bottles and a few other
essentials, ignoring the police
offi cers who ordered them to retreat.
“I told them that they were not going
to stop me getting things for my
babies and we went back in,” said
Jade.
Further up the High Street at 6pm
on Thursday, Dan Curley was also
arguing with police. He runs the
Cock pub on Buxton Road and was
reluctant to leave. “It’s a brewery
pub but I have a lot of my own stuff
in there, electric equipment and
things, and I didn’t want to go. Then
they told us if we didn’t leave they’d
arrest us so I thought I better had.”
He returned a few hours later,
begging to be let through the cordon

0.1 miles

100m

Toddbrook reservoir

Contains about 1.3m

tonnes of water

The dam

400 tonnes of

aggregate placed

to shore up the

reservoir Whaley Lane

Town centre

River Goyt Tesco

superstore

Whaley Bridge

rail station

Reservoir

Road

Approximate

evacuation area

About 1,000 people

evacuated

Road closures

Buxton

Road

to fetch his glasses and was told in

no uncertain terms that it would not

be possible. Yesterday at lunchtime

he was still half-blind with a

crushing headache caused by hours

of squinting.

M

eanwhile, just

10 metres away

from Toddbrook

Reservoir, at

the far end of

Reservoir Road,

John and Helen Derham were

entertaining friends with an aperitif

in their front garden. No one in

Whaley lives closer to the water than

the retired couple, but no one had

ordered them out so they decided to

stay put.

Their road was shut so their

guests had to get there by going

cross country, over a stile and

through a muddy wood, in order

to check on the couple. The couple

were in high spirits, despite Helen’s

gout – she was allowed to merely

sniff John’s beer – and fearful not

for themselves but for those l iving

below the waterline.

Paul and Mel Mitchell had come

to pick up a highly prescriptive

shopping list from John – “2 x Greek

yoghurt 0% fat! 6x Braeburn/Gala

apples” – so that he and Helen

didn’t need to leave. The Mitchells

had in tow their own evacuees,

Sara Dickinson and her 17-year-old

son, James, who stayed with them

up the hill on Thursday night. The

Dickinsons live right by Whaley

Bridge station and decided to leave

after seeing neighbours packing

their bags, reasoning it was better to

be safe than sorry.

All seemed calm after the chaos

of the previous day as they sipped

their drinks, waving at the passing

Chinooks. Every now and again a

motorised dinghy would pass. The

vessels were fi lled with sandbags

that fi refi ghters were using to try to

prevent water from a higher brook

fi lling the reservoir, which had

already reduced by 20cm (7.8 ins)

overnight, according to Julie

Sharman, chief operating offi cer of

the Canal and River Trust.

Back on Whaley Lane, Jade’s

father-in-law was setting off

on a mercy mission to get his

granddaughters nappies and

formula. All of the roads out of the

town were shut, but he managed to

reach them before they went hungry

or dirty. Jade was grateful but

continued to be racked with anxiety:

“We don’t have contents insurance.

If the dam bursts then Whaley

Bridge will be destroyed.”

Further down the hill, on a patch

of land known poetically as Cow

Field, Currie was off ering help to

Di Bowker, who had been forced to

leave her home below Bings Wood.

Bowker, who works in a label factory

on Whaley Lane that had also been

evacuated, received a relatively

early warning that she had to leave.

Before she left, she put her

favourite records and photo albums

on her bed upstairs, along with all

important documentation, but left

with scarcely more than the clothes

she stood up in.

Still, at least she had the veteran

of I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of

Here to help her cope in trying

circumstances. “I’ve got plenty of

clean knickers at my house if you

need them,” Currie said.

▲ An RAF Chinook helicopter drops

sandbags to shore up the partially

collapsed dam wall at the reservoir

PHOTOGRAPH: LEON NEAL/GETTY

Flooding

Crisis ‘is

a result of

failure to

invest in

defences’

Matthew Weaver

and Sandra Laville

The Whaley Bridge dam crisis high-

lights the potentially disastrous

consequences of failing to build new

infrastructure that can cope with

the climate emergency, experts have

warned.

As the environment secretary,

Theresa Villiers, chaired a meeting of

the Cobra emergency committee on

eff orts to make the dam safe, she fac ed

calls for an urgent overhaul of fl ood

defences and water infrastructure.

She said the government was ensur-

ing “everything possible is being done

to draw down water levels, fi x dam-

age to the dam and protect homes and

businesses”.

Bob Ward, policy director at Gran-

tham Research Institute on Climate

Change and the Environment, said:

“This is an example where our infra-

structure is not up to scratch and

we are not acting quickly enough to

upgrade it.”

“It is a warning to Villiers that she

has got to put climate resilience at

the top of the government’s list. It is

all very well worrying about Brexit,

but without upgrading infrastructure

we are going to suff er more and more

grave consequences. If you delay on

this, all you are doing is setting us up

for disaster.”

Ward said the government had

already been “caught on the hop” by

the two wettest winters, in 2013 and

2015. In response it promised a fl ood
      resilience review but has so far only
      examined river fl ooding and not the
      impact of surface water fl ooding.
      In May the Environment Agency
      warned that increased extreme fl ood-
      ing events could force thousands of
      people to move away from coastal
      regions.
      Ward added: “We have the fl ood
      defence system fi t for the climate of
      the 20th century when we need it fi t

for the 21st century. We are going to

see more record rainfall, more fl ood-

ing along our coasts and rivers, and we

are just not prepared for that.”

Paul Sheffi eld, senior vice-presi-

dent of Institute of Civil Engineers,

said the Whaley Bridge dam which was

built in the 1830s, is a “timely reminder

that we cannot aff ord to underinvest

in infrastructure”.

“Every bit of infrastructure if it is

going to be exposed to more onerous

events than it was originally designed

for obviously has to be reviewed.”

Sheffi eld, who was civil engineer on

the Maentwrog dam in North Wales –

one of the few concrete dams built in

the UK in the last 50 years – called for

new fl ood defences to be built at least

a metre higher.

“In Holland, whenever they

strengthen their sea defence struc-

tures they are taking the precaution

of building them a metre higher than

they were 50 years ago, because of

the possibility of fl ood events. This is

something the UK government needs

to look at. Our fl ood defences will need

to be raised.”

Edward Bouet, senior fl ood risk

consultant at the Unda consultancy,

said most dam s dated back to the 1960s

and 70s and were being tested to dis-

ruption by increased extreme weather

events caused by climate change.

He said: “We need to urgently assess

the condition of our hydraulic infra-

structure across the country, we need

to assess how fi t for purpose it is. It

is all very well if a dam is in excellent

condition but if it was designed to deal

with a 1:50 fl ood event and it is going

to be frequently exceeding that, then

it is not fi t for purpose and it needs to

be improved.”

Over the coming weeks the govern-

ment is due to respond to a review by

the National Infrastructure Commis-

sion (NIC) which urged ministers to

commit to spending 1.2% of GDP on

infrastructure and ensure a further

1.8% is provided by the private sector.

Sheffi eld said as much of this invest-

ment is now in jeopardy. “We just need

to be really careful in this country that

we don’t frighten overseas investors

away from investing in infrastructure.

Political uncertainty, not only around

Brexit but also the meltdown in UK

politics, will inevitably make infra-

structure investment organisations

from overseas more nervous about

investing in this country.”

The NIC also called for a series of six-

year funding programmes until 2050

to ensure households were resilient

to fl ooding.

Phil Graham, chief executive of the

NIC, said: “The cost to the public purse

would be around £1bn annually, but

as yet no government minister has

adopted the proposals or set about

putting what is a long-term fl ood resil-

ience programme into action.

“Flood resilience is a major issue, it

is important for the economy and for

society and we are a world away from

where we need to be. It requires a long

term, ambitious response because the

impacts of climate change ... are going

to make events like this more and more

likely, not less and less likely.”

Terry Fuller, chief executive of

the Chartered Institute of Water and

Environmental Management, said:

“There is no doubt the UK is nowhere

near resilient enough or ready for

even the current climate let alone any-

thing we are going to see in the coming

decades. ”

▲ Theresa Villiers is being told more

infrastructure spending is essential

Whaley Bridge, Derbyshire

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