I've been watching the news about the flooding in England with mounting apprehension. They're saying it's the worst flood in history, and the rains aren't about to let up anytime soon. I've long been aware of England's reputation as a gloomy, rainy place, but it never occurred to me that England might suffer the wrath of a monsoon.
I guess this is the first major challenge for Gordon Brown, the new prime minister.
Donations to the UK Red Cross can be made here.
CORRECTION: I should be referring to this as the UK flood. There's already a Wikipedia article about it.
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I have a hard time swallowing this statement every time I here it--"the worst flooding in history." Hell, we have people who claim dinosaurs never existed and the world is only 10,000 years old. A more correct phrasing would be "Britain (or anywhere else for that matter) is suffering its worst flooding in living memory, or since modern record keeping practices began (then list the year)."
ReplyDeleteRadar isn't even 100 years old, but according to the U.S. weather service, 2005, the year of Kartina and Rita, was the worst year "ever" in terms of hurricanes, surpassing the previous record holder 1933 (a year without radar and satellites). And, who knows what happened in the preceding years of which there are billions.
I'm from Texas, and the half I'm from used to be under an inland sea millions of years ago. So, until that happens again, I don't see how people can justify using the phrase "the worst flood ever" until El Paso is ocean front property again. In recorded recorded, or modern, history yes, in all of history, no.
Flooding sucks. I've been through it a couple of times myself, but it's part of living and learning. People should always have an extra week's worth of food and supplies ready for any emergency, but we live in our own little fantasy world's of where that can never happen to me, and then blame the government when it does and not our own shortsightedness.