After parts of London were flooded for the second time in two weeks, flood experts urged Britain to be more prepared.
Due to heavy rain brought by thunderstorms on Sunday, people saw Londoners wade through floods that might be contaminated on the streets, overflowing toilets.
Simon Crowther, a flood expert and engineer, said that floods pose a “real threat to life” and will have a huge impact on health and the economy.
“Due to climate change, flooding is the biggest threat facing the UK. Homeowners need to check their flood risk and take action to reduce it,” he said.
“Seeing flooding anywhere is devastating and traumatic. We really need to take flood management seriously, because this is not only a raid, but a real threat to life.
“So far, this approach has been very passive, but I think these incidents show that we really need to be more proactive.
“Water gushes from the toilet and floods people’s apartments. This is the worst type because you let other people’s sewage directly enter your house.”
Experts explained that health risks from floods and dirty water include Welsh disease and hepatitis.
The engineer urged the UK to take flood management more seriously and emphasized the need for publicity campaigns.
He said: “We have had two serious floods in two weeks. This fact highlights that this is a truly overlooked risk.”
“People think that this kind of thing will happen only once in a hundred years, but that’s not the case anymore.
“I find it frustrating that when you see the toilet overflow, the valves that prevent this from happening cost about £60, but no one has installed these valves.”
He added that what we see most often is the flooding of surface water, which poses a real danger to people coming over and cannot see below the surface.
“Manholes may be moved out, you may be sucked into underground sewers. You don’t know if there are debris or pollutants in the flood.
“My advice is to avoid all floods as much as possible, but in the UK, there still seems to be cases of’leaving kayaks or rubber rings’ because people are not aware of the risks.
Mr. Crowther emphasized the link between climate change and the recent severe floods around the world.
“But this may happen tomorrow, it may happen next week, it may happen ten years later.
“It will happen again, and we need to be more prepared.”
Climate change behind extreme weather
“When we saw how many people died in Germany and China, we saw that the climate was getting worse,” Mr. Clauser said.
“In Turkey in the same week, they recorded the hottest day in history, and then there was a massive flood on Thursday.
“Of course we have seen huge changes that we are not prepared for.
“London’s drainage network was very cleverly designed by the Victorians, so the water was designed to overflow into the Thames instead of a surcharge.
“But this creates more problems because we dump water into the river every time it rains. This of course requires further investment.”
