Britain Underwater Panorama

transformed. Yesterday, I was just shaking all day. I just couldn't

stop shaking. As wild storms battered the coast.

As you can see, the wind's picking up every now and then. The heaviest

rainfall for a century fell onto sodden land and the waters rose. I'm

still in shock. I don't think it's hit me. For weeks, Panorama has been

filming with the people living with the floods. Move back! Families

driven out by the water. This is what flooding is really like. It's

really just horrible and filthy and dirty. With so much of the country

under threat, how do we decide what we protect? You experts, you

flooding experts, get down here, get your waders on, get your dry suits

on and get the data you need to help prevent this from happening again.

Who chooses who gets saved and who gets sacrificed? We've been

abandoned. Everything that's been done, we've had to fight to do

ourselves. We're fighting to raise money. And, is the Government being

straight about the choices we face? It's stupid politics. It's stupid

politics not to tell people the truth.

It's a cold February night on the Somerset Levels. And water is rising

in the village of Moorland. Yeah, I mean, in here. Obviously,

we've still got power running. What a work, we had power running, so we

don't now, so, I guess that decides that we're definitely going tonight.

We were with the emergency services as they try to keep people safe.

Even their control area is starting to flood. And check those two

properties, cos we can't confirm, and then come back to me, and then I

can update comms. Hello there. Sorry to wake you up. I'm just

double-checking. Are you still definitely staying in tonight? Not

everyone wants to go. This is our dining room. Phil and Lana have

lived here for 39 years. It's a disaster area, basically. This

started this morning. Yes. And we've been bailing out with buckets first

from about 7:30am. But as fast as Lana tries to get the water out,

it's rushing back in, and rising all the time. It's coming through into

the bathroom, this has happened approximately an hour ago, it

started, it's completely covered now. The water from the Levels picks

up slurry, contents of septic tanks, etcetera, etcetera, and so it's

pretty unpleasant. It feels like a losing battle. This

morning I got up and I felt sick, physically sick. Yesterday, I was

just shaking all day. I just couldn't, I couldn't stop shaking.

Sorry. Much of Moorland is under three feet

of water. Louise Barnett lives down the road

from Phil and Lana. Look at this. Just pictures, school photographs.

This is what flooding is really like, just horrible and filthy and

dirty. This poor woman's house is just underwater and she's saving

what she can. Here's another bag, shall I take it? Yes, please. Are

you all right? How are you feeling? Like I want to scram everything up.

Yeah. The village has been turned into a different place. The water is

dangerous and destructive. It's horrendous. Absolutely horrendous.

I'm still in shock. I don't think it's hit me yet, personally.

Jim Winkworth is a farmer and landlord of a local pub. He showed

me around a landscape transformed. How long has that been like that?

Well, the road's been closed since New Year's Eve. Right. So, it's a

fair old time. There are villages here that have been underwater for

nearly seven weeks. They don't care about us because they've kept

Taunton dry and they've kept Bridgewater dry and they've kept

Bristol dry and all this kind of stuff, but us few homes and

businesses out here, we're not high on the agenda.

It is true, not everybody can be defended. So, it's about choices,

protecting the most people for your money, and here, that means

protecting the nearby towns. So, how do they do that? Well, here, the

rivers haven't burst their banks, the banks have been lowered to let

the water pour out. This is a pumping station, and when the River

Tone here reaches a certain point, when it gets too high, a spillway

here diverts the water and plonks it on the land. The problem is the

system completely falls apart when there's this much water.

These new inland seas look dramatic, and they've washed through about 600

homes. But this water didn't surge

downstream, and that means 36,000 people in the nearby town of

Bridgwater were protected. We do store some floodwater in one

of the moors, which is designed to protect larger communities.

Unfortunately, what has happened, given the amount of rainfall that

we've had, is that that moor has then overflowed into other moors

where there are communities, and regrettably, people have been

flooded. So, villages on the Levels get flooded, in part as a

consequence of protecting the town. The other part is the record

rainfall. The south of England has had the wettest January in 250

years, and nationally, since 2000, we've had four of the five wettest

years on record. So, does that mean we should expect

more extreme weather? It's very hard to make predictions

on a near-term time frame when you're talking about climate change,

which operates over decades, but what you can say is this gives us a

sense of what there is to come, that if we don't do anything, we will be

subject to increased risks of the kind of floods that we're seeing at

the moment, and those that we would expect to happen more frequently.

The chairman of the Environment Agency, the body that's responsible

for fighting floods, says we're now facing tough choices because we

can't defend everything. The Government usually relies on

their advice. After all, they're the experts. But this time, the Prime

Minister disagreed. There should not be a false choice between protecting

the town or protecting people who live in the countryside. Why would

the Government continue to say that it's a false choice between town and

country? I really don't know. They were telling an untruth, they were

not being clear about the policy, they were pretending that they could

protect everybody. Can you see that it just sounds like, irrespective of

the evidence, you're trying to say something that makes everybody

happy? No, I don't accept what you're saying at all. Of course,

you're still going to need to prioritise flood-defence projects,

I've been clear about that, all I'm saying is you shouldn't exclude

rural communities, and that's what the Prime Minister is saying. The

Environment Agency says it has protected 1.3 million homes during

these floods, like here in Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire.

Back in 2007, this town was hit hard, and across the country, 48,000

homes were flooded. This time, only 6,000 homes have

been affected. Yet, in some areas, the Environment Agency is being

blamed for some of the flooding. Here on the Levels, people are very

much focussed on dredging. The belief is that if the rivers had

been maintained, all this flooding wouldn't have happened.

To dredge or not to dredge has become a national debate. The idea

is if you make the river deeper by digging the silt out you can carry

more water away. But faster, deeper rivers bring water more quickly from

the hills into flood areas. The Environment Agency stopped routinely

taking silt out of the rivers years ago. And in Somerset that decision

is widely blamed for the flooding, and its consequences. I just can't

keep going with the threat of that river and the flooding and the main

road being closed. If you can't get people into the business than you

won't hear the till ring. And who do you blame? I blame the Environment

Agency. I believe if that dredging was done than this flood would never

have started. I feel I've been abandoned. In the end, the

Government listened to what Jim and his campaigners were saying.

Dredging was back. A senior minister even apologised for listening to the

Environment Agency. I'll apologise unreservedly. And I'm really sorry

we took the advice of what we thought we were dealing with

experts. It was a slap in the face for the Environment Agency and

deeply demoralising for the workers I met on the ground.

Environmentalists who know the Levels say the minister was wrong.

The Environment Agency advice has been very clear on this for years

that in many circumstances dredging will actually make situations a lot

worse. What do you think of the criticism of the Environment Agency?

I think it has been completely misplaced. The Environment Agency is

being used as a political football by people who know an awful lot less

about these issues than the Environment Agency people do. This

weekend an independent study concluded that, given the volume of

rain, dredging would not have stopped the flooding. There is some

evidence it might help clear the floods more quickly. But experts say

dredging is not the answer here. I absolutely understand the call for

dredging from people who are angry and hurt and feel neglected. I mean,

people are really upset. Now, under those circumstances, I understand

exactly why they ask for dredging. And I understand exactly why

politically they are promised it. But it wouldn't solve the problem.

What do you think about the way the Government has treated the

Environment Agency over the past week or so? Eric Pickles saying, "I

thought we were dealing with experts?". I've worked closely with

the Environment Agency since Christmas and they've worked

incredibly hard in very difficult circumstances. And Eric Pickles has

also said the same. So the first thing he said doesn't count anymore?

Eric Pickles has praised the Environment Agency. Yes, after he

criticised them, he said that first. Look, what I would say is Eric

Pickles was basically reflecting some of the criticism that was

coming, particularly in Somerset of the decision not to dredge. And he

was picking up on that criticism. In spite of the expert advice, the

Environment Agency is now about to dredge, just as ministers demanded.

It's stupid politics. It's stupid politics not to tell people the

truth. To take the easy way out, I'll give you lots more money, I'll

do lots more dredging, I'll save you, I'm not persecuting you. In the

long run it doesn't help. It's not only in Somerset that some people

are protected and others left vulnerable. The crucial decisions on

what will be saved are made long before the rain arrives.

On the River Thames a ?110 million project is protecting more than

3,000 properties. This is the Jubilee River and it's entirely

man-made. And it takes the excess water that falls into the Thames and

diverts it around Maidenhead. On a map you can see how the new

river keeps flooding away from Maidenhead, Windsor and Eton. After

the man-made river rejoins the Thames, villages are no longer

protected and have been flooded. The money hasn't been spent on them.

This is Wraysbury. And what I am standing in. This. This is the

Thames. It's spilled its banks down there and there are now hundreds of

homes, hundreds of families, that are in the water.

Defending Wraysbury wasn't a priority. And locals say what makes

it worse is they were offered no support when the water did arrive.

We'll give you a road to go to, if you go with Mark now. When we met Su

Burrows last Monday there wasn't much official help. She's an IT

consultant who found herself tackling a major incident as a team

of volunteers defended their village. This operation is entirely

resident run. We are absolutely being sacrificed, we are being

ignored. We feel left out. We do not exist in terms of the EA or anybody

else. That same day Su managed to get her message to the very top. Mr

Cameron. Get your waders on. Get down here now because we need you.

We need the army, we need people, we need bodies. We are doing this as a

community. Wraysbury will not go under. Wraysbury is on the Thames

flood plain. New homes are still being built here despite the obvious

dangers. In this village, three areas at risk of flooding have been

proposed as sites for housing. Nationally around 20,000 properties

a year are built on flood plains, about a fifth at significant risk.

Bruce Gilligan's house is on the flood plain but it's built two feet

off the ground to protect it from flooding. It wasn't enough. Once it

breaches your home, that's what it is, it's your home... You know it

just goes to another level. This is the first house that we've actually

finished in terms of getting every room how we wanted it.

The day after Su got Wraysbury on the television, the army arrived.

The soldiers we saw turned up without wellies, but were put to

good use making sandbags. A full scale rescue operation was now under

way. 'There's a female requiring evacuation'.

We know there are still people in risky areas that's four foot under.

We know it's dropping slightly in areas, an inch, two inch down. But

that's not feet, and it's still dangerous. The effort to keep people

safe through such extreme conditions has left volunteers exhausted. But

Su's efforts have won her some unexpected followers. You got a

letter. "Sue Borrows, The Wonderful Lady of Wraysbury". That's all it

needs to get to you. It's fan mail. It's money. "Dear Su, sitting

watching the television I can only marvel at how wonderful you've been

in all you've done for Wraysbury. You must have been so tired and

still you kept going. As an old pensioner I can't help so really

appreciate what you've done". Oh my God.

Help may have finally arrived in Wraysbury, but residents are still

wondering why they weren't protected.

Could it have been prevented, this flooding? Not the rain. There must

be something. Well, a solution was proposed. Three

years ago, the Environment Agency approved another man-made river like

the Jubilee. It would cost ?250 million. But protect 20,000

properties, including the village of Wraysbury. That's almost seven times

as many homes as the Jubilee River protects.

But it may never be built because under new rules the Government will

only pay half the costs. So the biggest undefended area of flood

plain in England remains unprotected.

The choices about what we do and don't protect aren't only about

rivers. We've all heard about Cornwall. The

main rail-line smashed at Dawlish. Enormous sea swells washing through

the fishing village of Newlyn. And giant waves thundering into tiny

harbours. But we haven't heard much about this place. The Norfolk

holiday village of Hemsby. Yet this is what happened in December when it

was hit by a storm surge. We all came running down here because

everybody was scared and saying that the sea surge was taking people's

houses away. We came running down here. We literally man-handled

everybody's stuff out of the bungalows. This house that was here

was tipping into the sea? Everything that was in the house on the floor

that night dropped straight through into the sea and washed away. This

is the moment that one house was taken by the sea.

The tidal surge took 30 feet of the village of Hemsby and washed it

away. Many of the houses here are built on sand dunes. If you look out

here. All this sea you can see, until the night of the tidal surge,

we didn't have a sea view. We couldn't see them wind turbines.

You're joking? And all that land is being taken away all the time. What

does that feel like? It's horrible. We don't know how much longer we've

got to live here. Every night, if it's really rough, my neighbour and

myself we get our big torches out. And we look along the dune line to

see certain markers. We look for the trees. If the trees are still there,

we can go to bed. The future of some of this community has been decided.

A plan, ultimately signed off by the Environment Agency, says Hemsby

should accept a controlled retreat. So another 50 homes in the area will

eventually be surrendered to the sea. These big blocks are tank traps

and they were put in place on the beach 70 years ago to stop the

Germans. And they've been dragged up here to try and keep the sand in

place. And these blocks are the only protection that this village has

from the sea. People here don't understand why millions are being

spent in the flooded south of England but nothing is being spent

here. We just feel like we are second class citizens. Why? Because

we're ignored. Do you feel abandoned then? We've been abandoned. The

night of the tidal surge we were abandoned then and we've been

abandoned ever since. Everything that's been done, we've had to fight

to do ourselves. We're fighting to raise money. It's not right. It's a

situation being repeated around our coastline. In Wales alone, up to 50

communities, like here at Fairbourne, have been told they will

no longer be protected. You cannot defend all the areas that we're

spending a lot of money defending at the moment. That stands to reason.

We've got a lot of vulnerable places round Britain. We really have. And I

just think it's a matter of making choices and these choices are

painful. Is it just the reality that we're going to have to let some

places go, do you think? Well, we can't rule out, going forward, that

there may end up, yes, parts of the country that we're able to protect

if we're absolutely overwhelmed by rising seas. But all I can say is

that we are spending record amounts of money on flood defence. So how

painful could some of these choices be? The Somerset Levels fall below

sea level. It's reclaimed land that the sea wants to get back.

The water has to be pumped off every time it floods. Should we commit

ourselves to millions in future spending?

Well certainly until the Bronze Age there were pelicans breeding here on

the Somerset Levels. This was sea, basically this, for at least part of

the year every year. What we are seeing now is pretty well how it

would have been. We are looking at a situation which was already pretty

perilous. Now we are seeing a situation which just might not be

viable at all anymore. But how do you tell people their homes may have

to be flooded? Well, I took George, the

environmentalist, to Burrowbridge to meet Jim, the pub landlord.

I imagine there would be a lynching party. I really do. I think people

feel that strongly about it. People losing their homes. Generations and

generations of people have farmed here, lived here. And generations of

people have grown up here. It is not a position where I want us to be and

not a position where anyone wants to be. No, no, of course not. But we

are in trouble. So what is the answer? What is the answer? In your

opinion. Well, I don't think there is one answer. But I do think there

are going to be communities on the Somerset Levels which, where it is

very hard to see how they can remain viable if we are still going to be

kept hit with stuff like this. Right. What did you think of what

Jim had to say? People, of course, they love their homes. They love

their communities. They are going to be very, very reluctant to be told

that it is not going to work anymore. But there is a point beyond

which you can't argue with nature. Nature is the source of these

problems. But climate change could make the situation worse. The

Government is planning for more extreme weather. The reason that we

are spending record levels of money on flood defence is precisely

because we recognise that climate change may make these extreme

weather events more regular. And that is why we're spending the

levels of money we are. But the Government's own advisor on climate

change says less cash than was promised is being put aside to

protect us from future floods. He says there's already a ?500 million

shortfall and it's set to get worse. By 2020, we think the funding

deficit for the current plans will grow to something just under ?2

billion. So we need to spend a lot more money if we are to manage those

risks we face of flooding in the future.

Right now, many in Somerset have more basic concerns. Like what have

they lost and when will they go home?

Remember Phil and Lana who were flooded out of their home on the

Somerset Levels? They're going back to see what the water's done. Well,

it's worse. Ten times worse. And, uh... Oh, hang on. Are you OK? I

don't know. Thousands are enduring such difficult times. Come and see

our living room. Oh. Are you all right? Yeah. Goodness

me. We got everything as high as we possibly could.

Faced with criticism about how much it's been spending on flood

defences, the Government has promised a review. And 1,500 job

losses at the Environment Agency have been put on hold. It's

predicted that we might not get back into this house until Christmas

next. And where do we go? It's up to the electric sockets. Oh well that's

it then. We've had it. In the long term there may be

difficult choices to be made. I think most people who live in any

low lying area should be aware of the risk they're at. Take steps to

reduce it to a tolerable level. But mindful of the fact that it is a

possibility, and if you can't be comfortable with it, then that is

not a good place for you to live. It is a sort of war, and there are

going to be casualties. And the best thing to do is to be frank with

those people who are likely to be the losers. Unless we want to spend

much more money we can't protect everywhere. So if more extreme

weather is to come, more communities could be left to the water.