Cornwall Floods-November 2010

Archie McCluskey

The recent flood in Cornwall were a result of very heavy rain in the early hours of the 17th November, and caused widespread damage to the county, and were accompanied by strong winds reaching up to 62 mph on the Isles of Scilly (St Mary’s) and 58mph at Berry Head in Devon. The area of low pressure off the west coast of Ireland brought rain to western UK areas and especially heavy rainfall for areas of the West Country, with up to 45mm recorded between 0400 and 0600 GMT in Heligan, Cornwall.

Over 100 properties were flooded with much damage to houses and office buildings and roads such as the A30 and A38 were closed for several hours. This asks the question; should a better warning have been issued by the Met office? The Met Office itself says that it is not their job to issue the warning, which is of another agencies concern.

Even at midday, the water proceeded to crash down the hill sides into the valleys which caused possibly the most damage of all. Low lying fields and pastures in towns such as Lostwithiel were completely under water along with a 700 year old bridge being damaged, and a local baker even described the water being up to his knees after a few minutes of the intrusion of water. The flood water also caused landslides on some steeper sided valleys, but no buildings were engulfed or deaths caused, however more than 100 homes had to be evacuated.