Soldiers should help tackle floods, says review
Military personnel should help lead the response to major floods, a Government review has said.
Recommending that flooding should be treated as a national threat on a par with terrorism, Sir Michael Pitt's review of last summer's floods calls for a major overhaul of emergency planning.
The review concluded that the UK is ill-prepared for a repeat of last years' heavy rains, which brought chaos to Yorkshire, the Humber, the Midlands and south-west England.
Almost 5,000 people forced from their homes last year have still not been able to return.
Sir Michael said it was "shameful" that so many people are still in temporary accommodation. He also attacked electricity, gas and water companies for leaving hundreds of thousands homes cut off when the floods came.
He said authorities and the public were taken by surprise by the "sheer scale" of the flooding, and called for a fundamental overhaul of emergency planning.
"We were not well prepared last summer for the scale of flooding that took place," Sir Michael said.
A Cabinet Committee should be set up dedicated to tackling the risk of flooding, just as there are bodies preparing for terror attacks and disease epidemics.
And the military should be brought into flood planning, the Pitt Review concluded.
It said: "The Ministry of Defence should identify a small number of trained Armed Forces personnel who can be deployed to advise [civilian leaders] on logistics during wide area civil emergencies."
Households also have a greater responsibility to prepare for possible flooding, Sir Michael concluded.
All homes should have a "flood kit", the study said. The pack would include personal documents, insurance policies, emergency contact numbers, a torch, a wind-up radio, a first aid kit, blankets, a mobile phone, wet wipes or anti-bacterial gel and rubber gloves.
The Government should also set up training course and information services to "encourage individuals and communities to be better prepared and
more self-reliant during emergencies."
The floods turned attention to the question of whether it is wise to build houses on flood planes.
Sir Michael said that such construction should be "the absolute exception," but should not be banned because of the wider importance of building new homes.
That anyone buying a home on a flood plane should be given a very clear warning about the potential risk.
All home buyers information packs should be required to carry detailed information about flooding risks, he added.
And building regulations should be revised for refurbishing or building new homes to make them more resilient to flooding.
Last year, ministers faced accusations that they had led the budget for flood defences dwindle. Sir Michael found that the £800 million-a-year flood defence budget for 2010 to 2011 was "about right" but said that money should be spent more wisely.
The review's 92 recommendations include:
:: The Met Office and Environment Agency should have a joint centre to improve their ability to forecast, model and warn against flood threats;
:: Local authorities should collate and map drainage systems - which contributed to much of the problems last summer, as a significant proportion of the floods were caused by surface water systems;
:: The Environment Agency should work with telephone companies to roll-out an "opt-out" telephone flood warning scheme, in which at-risk people are automatically signed up, even those who are ex-directory;
:: In order to ensure people get back into their homes as quickly as possible, the Government should publish monthly summaries of the progress of the recovery, including the number of households still displaced.
Original Source : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2192636/Soldiers-should-help-tackle-floods,-says-review.html
