I posted this after midnight BST on Kos but then got a sniffy response merely remarking that I was over the 1 diary a day limit. That site seems to work on PST but as this information will I hope prove a resource, if only one of last resort I have cross posted here where the time is shown in GMT which means I will not breach the same rule here!
You probably know that London is in danger of flooding. The banks of the Thames were raised in the 1960s and a moveable barrier built just below Greenwich. That is going to have to be replaced or supplemented in the future. The national and local governments, emergency services and other agencies have however done planning in case the Thames Barrier is breached. In that event our major financial centre would be under water and half a million households flooded.
A few more details below the fold but I have also found a couple of sites that you might want to keep in mind. These are UK based and one is co-sponosored by the insurance industry so they have a lot of superflous information BUT the general advice about preparedness and importantly for a lot of people, information about cleaning up etc is on them.
This was prompted by a piece on Murdoch’s Sky News in the UK about how London would cope with a flood like New Orleans. That is not as unlikely as it may sound. The Thames Barrier is designed against storm surges off the North Sea. Much of London is below the sea level of such a surge so contingency plans have been made in case the Barrier is breached or overtopped.
There have been practise exercises to assess the preparedness of the different riperian local authorities (the London Boroughs and the Londonwide authority) and the emergency response services. Plans have been made to evacuate people from the affected areas and to arrange where the over 500,000 people affected would be evacuated to. These detailed plans are linked on the Environment Agency site I will show below. it also has advice on a “flood kit” to keep in case you might be affected.
The second has a lot of advice about clearing up and re-occupying. This is jointly sponsored by the insurance industry in the UK on the basis that advice to help aleviate damage reduces claims. There is therefore some irrelevant things like “phone your insurers” but again the general advice may be of help. These really are two sites to browse later and get information from as and when but if your government cannot provide it, why not get some that might be of help from a country that does plan?
Preparing for Emergencies (site also has information on other risks like CBN terrorist attacks)
Repairing and restoration of buildings following floods – the insurance co-sponsored site.
Also of interest will be this link which describes advice on all sorts of things that have been planned in the event of an emergency in London. There is a lot that can be extrapolated for both industry and individuals.
