In January 2005 we woke up in Carlisle to a nightmare ahead of us. Our beautiful and historic city slowly filled with water, around 3,000 homes were flooded. The whole city lost power, we were plunged into darkness and collectively engulfed in shock. Driving down Warwick Road, a main arterial route into the city, we all became accustomed to pavements full of skips, soggy carpets and furniture. Plaster was stripped from walls, floorboards lifted and dehumidifiers placed in homes to dry them out. Families were out of their homes for up to a year. Many people despaired, as they had no insurance. Our great city became famous for the ‘floods of 2005’. Slowly we found a new normality. Despite being left with a scar, we cherished proudly the memories of the community spirit which surfaced as we all came together to help our neighbours.
By January 2015 we were ready to acknowledge the 10-year anniversary of a terrible time. The Labour government of the time (thanks largely to the hard work of Eric Martlew, our Labour member of parliament until 2010) invested £48m in flood defences. We felt safer. It was said that we were the best defended city in the country. When the terrible floods happened in Cumbria in 2009 we held our breath and breathed a collective sigh of relief as the waters passed us by, giving the mounds of earth and walls that were our food defences a special kudos from all Carlisle residents. We empathised with west Cumbria as bridges were washed away, a policeman tragically lost his life and Cockermouth Main Street was under water.
It became one of those ‘where were you when …’ subjects. Everyone in Carlisle had a flood tale to tell. Everyone knew someone who had been affected. In a city as small and close-knit as ours it would be impossible not to be affected by an event of this size.
Last Saturday, 5 December, I was getting ready for work to start a 25-hour shift including a sleepover. The rain had been constant and heavy since the day before; our Saturday morning leaflet session had to be cancelled. There were warnings out that Storm Desmond was likely to hit the north of England and Scotland.
At work we listened to local radio stations and it became obvious that all was not well. Instead of single areas of Cumbria being in trouble it was apparent that the rain was causing trouble like never before, right across the county. Main roads had been closed, roofs were being blown off and frightening predictions were being made. Residents in vulnerable areas were being advised to move what they could upstairs to safety.
By the evening messages were coming in that people I knew had flooded already and were leaving their homes. There was talk of a car park flooding and people being rescued from the roofs of their cars. All anyone could do was sit and wait.
I knew that I wasn’t getting much sleep that night. I could hear sirens, horns and lots of activity from the Warwick Road area. Social media was a godsend as I checked on friends, viewed their photos and kept up to date with information. Still awake at 3am I received a call from a friend who had been flooded in 2005, had now cleared her downstairs, taken her menagerie of pets and her family upstairs, and was waiting for the flooding to happen. Her words were: ‘I don’t think I can go through it again’.
At 9.30am I received a text to say my friend was under two feet of water in her house. This was it: the waters were in and were rising. They eventually peaked higher than they had in 2005. This ‘Once in 100 years’ event had happened again, not even 11 years after the last time. Our great city went into collective shock.
Then we rallied and we did what we know best: we helped each other out. By 6pm I was in the Greystone community centre which had been declared an emergency reception. People were bringing piles of clothes, bedding, food and cleaning products to help their neighbours. Local takeaways delivered hot food and supermarkets delivered vanloads of supplies. Bewildered people came in for shelter, no idea how it could have happened again.
The extent of the flooding only became apparent watching the news. Helicopters had been flying over filming the scenes below. In 2005 the whole of Carlisle lost power. This time the defences around the substation, coupled with a pumping-out mission, helped to keep the majority of areas supplied with electricity. Around 1,700 lost power, compared to 60,000 in 2005. A brilliant achievement by those engineers working on it.
City and county council staff were working round the clock, the emergency services and the army were brought in. Volunteers turned up from all ends of the country to help with the rescue. RNLI tape was seen on the doors of those they rescued by boat and checked they were out of their flooded homes. I can’t praise those involved enough. Social services were deployed to the emergency reception to help, and an army of volunteers turned up offering their services. Carlisle United footballers, with their ground underwater, offered their post-training services and helped to clear furniture out of flooded homes.
The big question asked by many was: ‘What happened to the flood defences?’ Why did they not hold out?
First, it has to be pointed out that some areas which flooded last time were saved by the defences. It looked touch and go for a time, but there was relief as they held back. The defences in the areas that were flooded bought people valuable time to get their possessions moved up high, move cars, pets and people to safety.
On at least two occasions since 2005 Carlisle would have flooded had the flood defences not been in place. What happened this weekend is that an unprecedented amount of rain fell. Records were broken as 341.4mm of rain fell in 24 hours in Cumbria, smashing the 2009 record of 316.4mm. The levels were higher than 2005 and, despite studies indicating that the flood defences would be high enough, they just could not take the strain. The government has been short-sighted in cutting funding for flood defence schemes nationally. Would we have received the funding in 2005 had a Conservative government been in charge? I doubt it.
On this occasion the whole of Cumbria was affected. Carlisle, Appleby, Penrith, Keswick, Cockermouth and Kendal were the worst hit. The damage stretched the full length and width of the county like never before.
In 2014, despite the government t insisted that they had spent more on flood defences, the UK Statistics Authority ruled that they had cut spending by £247m in real terms. That is £115m this year alone. In Kendal a planned £4.4m defence scheme has been repeatedly shelved by this government. Kendal ended up under 1.5m of water this weekend with 1,397 people homeless as a result. Other schemes throughout the country have also been halted in the cuts.
It is clear that we now have to accept our climate is changing. Heavier rainfall over a prolonged period of time seems to be the future. We must adapt accordingly. Prevention is always better than cure. This government needs to stop being so myopic and must invest in our long-term future, and in futuristic flood solutions. It is apparent that building a wall as a defence is not always the answer as those walls can be breached in instances such as this.
Now is the time to look at different methods of flood defence. In Cumbria part of the issue is the water flowing from the fells in huge volumes. Carlisle has three rivers running through it. If one of these rivers bursts we can usually guarantee enough pressure on the other two that they will burst as well. Solutions need to be sought by looking to the source of the water. Investment must go into researching how the water can be controlled before it leaves the fells by managing it with the use of reservoirs, pipes and good water management methods.
How many other people were repeating my friends words on Sunday morning, ‘I don’t think I can go through it again’? How many more months or years can people be out of their homes? We are a resilient community but we can only take so much. We are a low-paid economy; well-paid jobs are not that available. Thousands of businesses have been affected; it is hard to count just how many when the knock-on effect is taken into account. Carlisle will survive this bout of flooding and we will come back stronger. I’m not sure if we could survive a third or subsequent times. David Cameron visited briefly and has promised some funding for those affected, as well as reimbursing the councils for the cost of the clean-up. That is all very welcome, but if the threat of flooding and climate change is not taken seriously in the future then I fear that many other communities will suffer in the way that we have here in Cumbria.
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Lee Sherriff is a councillor and chair of Carlisle Labour party. She tweets @MissLeeCarlisle