During “Flood Action Week,” the Environment Agency is emphasising the importance of flood preparedness and urging the public to take proactive measures as the UK faces increasingly severe weather patterns.
This year’s campaign coincides with the first anniversary of Storm Babet, which brought the third wettest three-day stretch for England and Wales since 1891. Although the Environment Agency’s flood defences protected around 97,000 properties during the storm, more than 2,000 were still affected.
With climate change contributing to more frequent extreme weather, floods are already a concern this autumn. Heavy rainfall last month led to nearly 1,000 properties being flooded, marking the first major incident of the season.
With around 5.5 million properties in England at risk of flooding, the core message of this year’s Flood Action Week is that simple, preventative steps can help mitigate the devastating impact of floods.
Key actions for households include checking long-term flood risks through the Environment Agency’s free service, signing up for flood warnings, and preparing homes by storing important documents in waterproof containers, elevating furniture, and arranging emergency kits.
“Climate change means extreme weather events are happening more frequently, and we have already seen an unusually wet September this year,” noted Caroline Douglass, executive director of flood and coastal risk management at the Environment Agency.
“We can’t always predict where the rain will fall or where flooding will occur, but we do know which areas are at risk. That is why it is essential we all do our part by checking our flood risk and signing up for flood warnings this Flood Action Week.”
Similarly, Floods Minister Emma Hardy asked everyone to be proactive and explore the longer-term property flood resilience measures that can be adopted.
Stuart Logue, interim chief executive of Flood Re, also highlighted the Build Back Better scheme where up to £10,000 can be accessed by householders for resilience-focused flood repairs.
Meanwhile, Dr Eugenia Cacciatori, a disaster insurance specialist from Bayes Business School, believes that insurance should play a more active role in promoting physical resilience alongside financial protection.
“The whole disaster insurance infrastructure needs rethinking to go beyond financial protection and individual buildings, and towards a model of mandatory insurance,” she said, stressing that resilience should be part of a larger conversation involving government and construction firms and planners.
The Environment Agency’s Flood Action Week runs until October 20.
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