The infrastructure network in the UK, including power stations, water plants, and transport systems is still far too vulnerable to flooding events according to a report, Flooding: Engineering Resilience, by the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE).

In a section concentrating on the East of England, it also comments that:

“No other area of the UK is in such real and immediate danger from flooding as the East of England. It’s at risk from all sides: coastal erosion and flooding, tidal surges, river flooding and overflowing drains in towns and cities.

“In November 2007 Great Yarmouth and Ipswich came within 120mm of being swamped by a North Sea tidal surge. A controversial ‘managed realignment’ could sacrifice 6,000 ha of the Norfolk coastline to rising sea levels, according to the Environment Agency.”

Full details on the ICE website

Article in the Times by Libby Purves:

It is strange when the sun shines on days of meteorological crisis. It happened here in Suffolk after the ‘87 hurricane, glorious blue-and-golden days illuminating a chaotic landscape of fallen timber and sparking power lines. On Friday morning too it shone, as the storm surge drove great hammering, spouting fists of water up against sea walls, drowned quays and turned the A12 into a shining extension of the Blyth estuary. Early in the day the sea wall at Aldeburgh, a thin battlement between rising brown river and hammering waves, felt like the only place to be. There is fear and loss and inconvenience in these great natural events, but there is also exhilaration.

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