Storm Desmond brought torrential rains and strong damaging winds to northwestern England and Scotland this weekend, forcing an emergency meeting of Britain’s emergency response committee on Sunday.
Reuters is reporting that Environment Secretary Elizabeth Truss said the meeting of the government committee was called to “urgently assess the scale of the floods and ensure the response remains coordinated, effective and gets help to those affected as quickly as possible.”
Britain’s army has been called in to help with evacuation efforts as well as put down sandbags. In Cumbria, where a major incident has been declared, boats had to be used to evacuate over 200 people to safety. The BBC is reporting there have been eight rescue centers opened.
The deluge left Carlisle, a city in Cumbria, underwater, with hundreds of homes submerged, and many rivers breaching their banks. The water was so deep in the streets that many cars were underwater. In all, about 55,000 homes in the north of England are without power, and most will not be getting electricity until Tuesday or even later.
There has been one death related to Storm Desmond. Police are reporting a 90-year-old man in London, which was experiencing extremely heavy winds, was blown into the side of a moving bus. Search teams are trying to find an elderly man thought to have fallen into flood water in Kendal, according to the latest from the BBC. There have been no other reports of injuries or deaths related to the storm.
There are still over 50 severe flood warnings in northern England, reports the Guardian, meaning there is a risk to life, and more than 30 flood warnings. There are about 40 flood warnings and alerts in Scotland, and some main roads are closed due to flooding and landslides. There is no train service at this time between England and Scotland if using Preston. There are some road restrictions in place on A66 and other routes.
Cumberland Infirmary and Royal Lancaster Infirmary are being powered by backup generators, so non-emergency operations and clinics are cancelled on Monday.
Following the collapse of a bridge near the village of Braithwaite, on Saturday, the Pooley Bridge in Ullswater and the Fitz Footbridge in Keswick collapsed. So everyone, please be careful out there.
The Met Office, said in one of the worst affected areas, Cumbria, received 201.8 millimetres (7.94 inches) of rain on Saturday. This is just a tad below the 215 mm usually seen during the whole of December. Wind gusts reached 90 miles per hour, a Met spokesman said.
While the worst of Storm Desmond has passed, the Met is forecasting more heavy rain on Monday in Scotland, northwestern England and Wales along with the possibility of additional flooding.
