The fate of more English cities, towns and villages hung in the balance on Tuesday as emergency crews built up defences against rising waters during Britain’s worst floods in living memory.
The floods produced images of the town of Tewkesbury turned into an island, a helmeted rescuer carrying a baby in a blanket, an elderly woman winched from her home by a military helicopter and people wading through thigh-high waters.
The government’s crisis-response committee, Cobra, met late on Monday and again on Tuesday as some rivers topped levels reached during the floods in 1947, even as meteorologists forecast more rain.
A spokesperson for Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who chaired the latest crisis meeting, defended the government’s actions amid charges it had been too slow to prepare for floods even though heavy rains had been forecast since last week.
”It was very difficult to predict exactly how the floods would affect the area. These were extraordinary events,” Michael Ellam told reporters.
In addition to large swathes of central and western England that have been submerged for days, rising rivers threatened the London commuter town of Reading, the royal castle city of Windsor and Abingdon, an Oxfordshire town.
”The main focus now is on Oxford [and] Abingdon,” an Environment Agency spokesperson said.
”Even though the river level has peaked there, the river level is very high, the river will continue to rise in the areas like Reading later on tomorrow [Wednesday] and Windsor the following day [Thursday],” he said.
Waters also lapped at the university colleges in the centre of Oxford, known for its ”dreaming spires”, cobbled streets and genteel academic atmosphere.
The River Isis, a branch of the Thames, spilled over a pathway and on to large parts of Christ Church Meadow, next to the centuries-old Oxford College.
Some of the grounds at nearby Magdalen College, whose alumni include poet and playwright Oscar Wilde, were flooded as water rose two feet higher than normal, and water also lapped at the university’s botanic gardens opposite.
However, the Environment Agency said the situation in the city was better than expected, while waters in flood-hit areas like Gloucestershire were receding.
”The flooding situation has improved overnight but obviously with the rainfall moving its way through we’re not out of the woods yet,” he said.
Forecasters predicted more showers this week and heavy rain on Thursday.
Seven severe flood warnings remained in place — three of them for the River Severn, two on the River Thames, and one each on the River Great Ouse in Bedfordshire and the River Ock in Oxfordshire.
The areas hit hardest by flooding, which began with exceptionally heavy rains last Friday, were Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, Lincolnshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire.
It left at least 350 000 homes without running water and 50 000 without power, but supplies were now being restored.
In Gloucestershire, where waters were receding, emergency services restored electricity to more than 48 000 houses plunged into darkness after a substation was deluged by the River Severn, police spokesperson Katy Roberts said.
She added that there was also a ”positive” outlook for Gloucester’s other substation after emergency crews worked through the night to build up its defences.
There had been fears that 250 000 people would lose power and water if it was lost.
She said preparations were under way to restore water supplies to 70 000 households in Tewkesbury, Gloucester and Cheltenham.
Newspapers carried dramatic photographs of Tewkesbury and its 12th century abbey surrounded by water. — AFP
