Named storms come with such frequency that the weekend hit of Storm Darragh may well be followed by Storm Zachariah before Winter is out. This could be an alphabetically challenging season, and it’s not just the railways facing the worst of a climate climax.
Parts of the West Coast Main Line network remain out of use today (Monday, 9 December) after the fourth and most damaging named storm of the winter season hit the UK at the weekend. A long list of minor damages have been reported across the island of Ireland, and the west coast of Great Britain. Today, there is a dead calm in most of the British Isles. However, the question is inevitably turning to when the next storm can be expected, and just how damaging it might be. More worryingly, is Britain ready for it?
Britain clears up after another storm event
Storm Darragh passed some parts of the UK with hardly a murmur. Other regions were not so lucky. The west coast inevitably bore the brunt of this latest Atlantic storm front, at the same time as a comms outage. Perhaps the highest profile casualty was the Everton – Liverpool football match, which made the world aware of the severity of the weather in the UK. With winds almost reaching 100mph (160kph), it’s hardly surprising that Liverpool’s transport network was put in jeopardy, and a sporting event, no matter how high-profile, was not going to survive that reality.
However, questions have been asked about the resilience of the wider transport network, and not just the ability of bus trams and trains to get 50,000 football supporters to a fixture between local rivals. The economic impacts of a railway, continually compromised by weather-related disruptions has begged the question: is Britain’s Industrial Revolution infrastructure up to the task of taking on the Climate Change weather in the twenty-first century?
The crowded climatic house of Britain
A typical criticism thrown at the British response to all matters of disruption is two-fold. First is the remoteness of the British Government. That seemingly absurd statement has some basis in fact. The seat of government is within one hundred miles (160km) of more than half of the UK population. Second, the north-south divide is far more than a socio-economic trope. It is a very real geographical one too.
Based in London, it is reasonable to concede that the government reflects the views of what it sees around it. The daily view of Britain is the lush green and gentle hills of the so-called Hope Countries – those administrative regions that share a boundary with London. This predominantly south of England outlook is dominated by congested commuter routes and great ports, with intermodal traffic competing for train paths on busy lines converging on London.
Always bring the weather resilience with you
Weather events in the relatively benign South East region have been confined to once in a lifetime snowfall (1963) and once in a lifetime storms (1987). Yet the infrastructure to deal with them has been put in place. The Thames Barrier – built with Dutch help and opened (or rather closed) in 1982, means London will never suffer in a catastrophic repeat of the deadly 1953 flood that scarred the east coast of England and led to the decline in economic activity that eventually saw the closure of many coastal and rural rail infrastructure.
The lineal disposition of Great Britain is also a hindrance to understanding the challenges posed by weather. The Scottish city of Aberdeen is closer to the coast of Norway than it is to the banks of the River Thames. The difference between the northern and southern parts of Britain may be tiny in a global perspective, but they are huge in climatic terms.
The differences between windswept west and low-lying east, and snow-bound north and temperer south leave Britain in that typically British position of trying to seek a compromise that rarely works for anyone to the optimum level. Flood defences in the Cairngorms are likely to be as useful as snowploughs in Surbiton – but each is as valuable as the other in the right region. In the future, the cost of coping is likely to be as popular a topic of conversation as that British staple – the weather itself.