British Prime Minister David Cameron visited a swath of northwest England inundated by floods, as rescuers pulled people from waterlogged homes after record rainfall led to at least one death and swamped some 3,500 properties.
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A police spokeswoman said: “Officers from Cumbria Constabulary and the Underwater Search Team recovered the body this afternoon”.
“Westmeath County Council has activated its Flood Emergency Response Plan and a meeting of the interagency Response Committee has taken place”. “We did what we could, we got flood gates, we put tiled floors down so we can mop out, but we never dreamt it would come up here”, Roger said.
By Monday morning, most of the supply was restored, with only 2,957 homes still cut off, according to power company Electricity North West.
The 90-year-old man, who died near Finchley Central station, north London, is believed to have been blown into the side of a moving bus by a gust of wind, a Scotland Yard spokesman said.
“We constantly review the way we look at the way we invest in flood defences”, she said.
Following an emergency Government meeting, Environment Secretary Elizabeth Truss said that figures from a rain gauge in Honister, Cumbria, suggested a record amount of rain fell in the 24 hours between Friday and Saturday evenings, measuring 341mm – more than a month’s worth of rainfall in just one day and more than the United Kingdom has ever experienced in such a short amount of time.
About 55,000 homes have been affected by power outage after an electricity substation in Lancaster was flooded.
The PM was shown inside the home of mother-of-three Lesa Boyko, whose home in Carlisle was hit by two feet of flood water after the River Eden broke through flood defences.
People wade through flood water as they move along River Street in Carlisle, northern England, on December 6, 2015.
But the Government has faced criticism after multi-million pound defences built following similarly catastrophic floods in 2005 failed to keep the deluge out from people’s homes. “What you can do is make the best judgments about the most appropriate ways to protect the maximum number of people in a given place”.
The devastation comes following flood defences in the north-west being upgraded in 2010 to withstand a “once in 100 years” flood.
“However, at this time we have had no reports of looting”.
It is hoped that long-distance West Coast services could resume by Wednesday, but there are warnings that further flooding is possible in the coming days.
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Flooding minister Dr Aileen MacLeod will visit to Hawick tomorrow morning to see first-hand the impact of recent flooding on the local community.
