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 04/12/2007, 12:03 AM
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keith gerrard
 
Joined on 16/04/2004
Posts 9,453
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Perhaps you could ask Norman Lamb exactly what his position is.
Does he support the current flood plans for the Norfolk coast?
If he does then how can he justify his position?
Dream on keithgerrard@gerrard24.freeserve.co.uk
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04/12/2007, 8:30 AM
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john
Joined on 07/08/2007
Posts 891
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I am sure Jill that there are many of us who do not live in Norfolk wish you all the best.Your thread is running on a par with the R.S.P.B.report thread.It is getting quite obvious now there are too many quangos and councils involved,all trying to get their greedy little fingers in the pot.None of them are capable and all are ready to pass the book.As soon as that sea surge had passed by the danger mark,the media lost interest,They were not interested in your plight or for that matter they are not interested in your future either.Time questions were answered honestly.John
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04/12/2007, 10:32 AM
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Ron Luton-Brown
Joined on 15/11/2005
Reepham Norfolk
Posts 64
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its quite simple Walcott residents need and desreve answers
the problem is the councils and quangos have shot them selves in the foot as councils can be deselected and finances ie council tax can be with held and all this makes for bad press and their is always the 12 bore response also bad press!
over to you councils....................................
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09/12/2007, 9:44 AM
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Jill
Joined on 15/08/2005
Norfolk
Posts 1,692
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Though I would just update
I got in contact with our district councillor and she came to visit yesterday. I had invited my near neighbours, a flood warden and Ray, who posts on the Forum as well.
An excellent exchange of views took place between us, getting together has certainly given us far more general knowledge than we had previously and our district councillor filled us in on many gaps regarding the council and its workings.
Ray had a visit to his property from Norman Lamb that day and left early, we laughed and said we would come too or to bring him back with him. Soon my doorbell rang and there Norman Lamb stood, he had come out of his way to see us.
What a result.
He came with reporters and cameraman and representatives and we all told him exactly how it was for us on that awful morning. One thing about him is that he does listen to you and allow you to have your say. We spent quite a while with him and if it does nothing else, he is at least aware of our predicament from his own perspective and how hard it was for the flood wardens to get to us through the floods.
At last a meeting with the Environment Agency and Council on Wednesday at 6.00pm in Walcott Village Hall, if anyone is interested. They will need flak jackets of course but we do not know if the Police will have a representative there, as it seems the decision not to sound the sirens has come from their direction.
I have been trawling the websites and it was interesting to read that the sirens have been called limitations by the North Norfolk council emergency planning department. I also noticed that they were due for decommission last July 2007 but a review put that on hold and am wondering if the siren was actually operational at the time of the floods or had someone jumped the gun.
Also this area has been called a low populated area with a predominately elderly population. Smacks of abandonment, in anyones language.
However, on the North Norfolk council website, it says If you hear a siren, move as quickly as possible to your evacuation centre or if your route is unsafe, move upstairs. However, the reason for the sirens being decommissioned was given as not everyone can hear it.
Great for us bungalow dwellers when we do nor even get a siren. The new technology being relied on is the Flood warning telephone system, which on our night failed to give updated information and crashed due to demand of numbers calling, weather forecasts which are "totally accurate", I do not think, and the siren was not activated. The latest excuse from Silver command is that the lady who rang up and told the reponding officer that the sirens needed to be sounded immediately, was not panicking enough and they didnt think they were needed. The lady was calm and professional in her very imporatant role and was not believed as she wasnt panicking. Can you believe it?
What an almighty cock up.
We were also told that the police officers who attended the hide tide situation later were not issued with wet weather gear as it might put them into a situation whaere they might go into the water and rescue someone, putting their own safety at risk. Yet the floodwardens risked their lives that night only to be overuled by police officers in a later situation who would not get out of their vehicles.
A Scrutiny committee is being held on Tuesday at Cromer council offices, where the people from the council involved will be asked to report on this fiasco. Should be around 11.am although the meeting starts at 9.00am. It will be very interesting to see how they try to save their skins and give us an insight into what we will be told the next day.
A further meeting to be held in January to actually discuss the flood sirens by yet another body, of which I will try to get more information later.
It is going to be a rip roaring week.
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09/12/2007, 12:25 PM
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keith gerrard
Joined on 16/04/2004
Posts 9,453
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10/12/2007, 11:07 AM
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Jill
Joined on 15/08/2005
Norfolk
Posts 1,692
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Just wondered if the moderators could put a link to the article about the floods by Richard Batson in todays EDP.
The Environment Agency still says it got the warning levels of Flood Alerts right for Walcott, when the ruin and devastation is staring them in the face.
They also have placeed a buoy for future monitoring, if they got it right the first time, one must ask, why have they done this if their predictions were so correct.
The warnings were 12 hours earlier in the afternoon when they were correct, they failed to update as their system crashed by over subscribing by worried people, then they refused the sirens knowing the system had crashed.
The control room was described as chaotic
It was "controlled devastation and mayhem" by the authorities who are now only interested in saving their own skins.
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10/12/2007, 12:05 PM
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Web Team - Vince
Joined on 07/08/2003
Archant Norfolk
Posts 886
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10/12/2007, 12:44 PM
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Jill
Joined on 15/08/2005
Norfolk
Posts 1,692
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Many thanks Vince, much appreciated
I am off to theScrutiny Committee at the North Norfolk District Coucil tomorrow
This is when the Council officials give their version
I am not allowed to ask questions at this stage or make a statement
So how does this committee know that what they are going to be told is the truth,
It might be a coverup from the people who failed to secure the safety of the Walcott residents, who is to say different to the people on the panel.
I do hope it isnt a whitewash but I wont hold my breath
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10/12/2007, 1:46 PM
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Glass
Joined on 14/05/2007
Posts 384
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Jill
Good luck with your efforts with the Council. Shame that they have gagged you and the other residents at this meeting, although you will be there to watch them squirm as they try to talk their way out of this one.
Hope all is getting back to normal at your home. It does take quite a while to sort out any property which has been damaged by flood water, but bear in mind if it is done properly (which can take a while), it should avoid any possible problems for you in the future.
All the best
Glass
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10/12/2007, 10:24 PM
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steve
Joined on 10/12/2007
Posts 2
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Jill,
I am most concerned that you have lifted a report from a website and then misquoted it, not once but twice. Firstly the report you quote was not written by a flood warden and no flood warden is in the report. Secondly the 0400 time quoted is actually a first call out time for Norfolk County RAYNET members to be at GREAT YARMOUTH Police station for deployment. Careful reading of the entire report will see that RAYNET members were actually deployed some 2 hours earlier at the request of County Control to rest centres which were receiving Gt. Yarmouth residents, along with further members to Cley and Salthouse (as requested).
I know this for a fact, because I wrote the report. RAYNET members are Licensed Amateur Radio operators who give their time freely and with their own radio equipment to provide emergency Radio communications at the request of the local EPOs or permitted user services. When there have been warnings given, and requested, we have provided emergency coms at Walcott (I was there personally in the March alert), but we can only act after a request by a user service and if we have the person power to safely man a position and the important fact is that we provide emergency coms, not decisions.
In fact your grumble is with the EA who, living in Ipswich, rely on their computer models to predict flooding, and at no time in the evening did they upscale their alert status to Severe for Walcott hence the reason why no permission ever came to sound the alarms. As far as I'm aware, there was no representation by the EA in Gt. Yarmouth in the evening (though apparently there was one in the ASDA carpark!!) and there was no EA representative at the debrief. either.
Personally I would ask the question why your flood wardens didn't just ignore the chain of command and sound the alarms when it was apparent that there was a clear and present danger to life. I can't believe that they were all afraid of the consequences of sounding the alarms could be worse than the possibility of loss of life.
Please do not involve us in your arguments or look for support. I suggest that you gather information, check it for its validity, accuracy and ensure that you do have all the facts before posting.
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11/12/2007, 1:44 PM
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BB
Joined on 14/10/2006
Posts 1,004
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 steve wrote: | |
Please do not involve us in your arguments or look for support. I suggest that you gather information, check it for its validity, accuracy and ensure that you do have all the facts before posting.
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Why would you not want to give your support, Steve?
Clearly, things went badly wrong here, an issue you don't dispute, and those affected, who could have lost their lives, want honest answers, as no doubt you would too in that situation.
If you and all other parties who co-ordinate and deliver this service do not want a repeat of events of 8th and 9th November 2007, I question why you would not want to give your support in a concerted effort to help to avoid any procedural issues of this kind in the future.
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11/12/2007, 1:51 PM
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spindrift
Joined on 04/04/2006
Posts 2,440
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Maybe Steve is suggesting it's best to base any campaigning on what actually happened, rather than misrepresentations?
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11/12/2007, 4:00 PM
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BB
Joined on 14/10/2006
Posts 1,004
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| newtyres wrote: | |
Maybe Steve is suggesting it's best to base any campaigning on what actually happened, rather than misrepresentations?
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Er, yes; is that not what anyone could reasonably hope for? In fact, I would like to hear more from Steve (and others involved in the process on those nights in question for that matter) what their thoughts are, rather than debate presumptions of their viewpoints.
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11/12/2007, 6:26 PM
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Jill
Joined on 15/08/2005
Norfolk
Posts 1,692
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Thank you Steve for clarifying that point, I apologise for the mistake.
I am not an expert, far from it, but a flooded out resident, frightened for my life and that of my family that night. I am learning the ropes day by day but it is a crash course in finding out the relevant information and your report was enlightening in the areas of Silver command.
However, apart from saying that it was from a flood warden in the first line of my post, your report was word for word correct and as written by you.
How was that misrepresentation? newtyres, when you have something relevant to say instead of just sniping I am sure we would all be interested to read it.
You ask why the flood wardens did not sound the siren?
Because they were did not have the key? Why not ask the Police, Environment Agency and District Council that question, they had the means and refused. That is why we want the keys taken out of their control and given to the flood wardens who do the job on the ground.
I have been to the Scrutiny Committee at the District Council today and was shocked to learn that Silver Control was stood down from the hours of 11.00pm until 3.00am during the worst sea surge of the last 50 years. They acted on computer technology which was not updated and was mainly for other areas of the Norfolk coastline and ignored the advice on the ground from the flood wardens of Walcott to sound the sirens, while they sat in their control rooms at North Walsham and Wymondham.
They said they would send in police help to evacuate, which culminated in two officers, without wet weather gear, so of course they were of great help during the floods. A flood warden nearly came to grief when walking over a drain of which the cover had been dislodged.
It was said that the 57 sirens along the coast are old, people cannot hear some of them and some are in the wrong location, Walcotts siren is not old, it is in the right place and we can all hear it.
They said, that people hearing it would evacuate into the flood waters and become casualties,our point is that the sirens should be sounded before it floods, as it could have been in November, people could evacuate themselves and not have the water at their front door before they are told to get out.
We were told that the Environment Agency Flood Watch warning was in force even when the water was feet deep, Watch, not Warning and the telephone updates failed when the electricity went out. We were also told to watch TV and hear radio bulletins but when your last flood watch call from them was at 4.00pm in the afternoon and you were hauled out of bed at 4.00am the next day, all their latest technological advances were useless.
However, the Police did not show up today, they were invited but did not attend to answer questions but they will be requested to a full council meeting as are the Environment Agency.
I was shocked at the denial, complacency and refusal to admit their failings by the council representatives today and they were questioned very strongly by council members. they took credit that no one died or was injured, but it was mainly because the winds did not get any stronger and nothing to do with anything they actually did and it was said that a disaster was only just averted.
I was not allowed to ask questions today, I will tomorrow at the meeting, my first being If the contract for transmission to the sirens with the BBC ended in July, was it renewed? Were the sirens actually operational in November? Who refused permission for them to be used.
Campaign? Well it has certainly turned out to be this. I am not political Steve, if you found yourself in my position and this had happened to you, perhaps a few words wrong here and there can be forgiven.
I will certainly hold my hands up to my mistakes, if only the inept powers that be, would do the same and tell the truth, we could all rest easier in our beds.
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EDP24 Forums » EDP24 General » News » Walcott hits back
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