Exceedingly heavy rain brought havoc to Lancaster and surrounds back in the winter of 2015. Much of the city was flooded, and 61,000 homes lost power for more than 30 hours when a electricity substation was submerged. New analysis of this flood event suggests the UK’s creaking infrastructure is highly vulnerable to repeat events.
Without a doubt, the storm that hit Lancaster on 4 December 2015 was extreme, with 82mm of rain falling in 48 hours – the highest two-day total on record. To make matters worse, it came after the fourth wettest November in 200 years, so the ground was completely saturated. Recently installed flood defences designed for one in 100-year events were quickly overwhelmed.
“It seems there is a limit to the effectiveness of ‘hard’ barrier defences,” says Emma Ferranti from the University of Birmingham. “We need ‘soft-engineering’ solutions that slow floodwater down.”
The loss of electricity had huge knock-on effects. Mobile phone signals were lost, internet access and landlines were knocked out, street lights and traffic lights went out, petrol stations were unable to pump fuel and there was severe disruption to transport (trains could only stop at Lancaster during daylight hours because there was no power at the rail station). “It has shown us how unexpectedly vulnerable our cities can be to extreme weather,” says Ferranti.
Writing in the journal Weather, the scientists warn that extreme weather events such as this are expected to become more frequent and that greater climate resilience in urban areas is going to be essential. “Imagine the consequences if something like this happened somewhere bigger like Birmingham? It could do,” says Ferranti.
