More than a week of severe weather and flood warnings have led the lead bishop on the environment to ask: “Are we serious about the urgency of meeting the challenge of climate change?”
Bishop John Arnold of Salford has told The Tablet: "The recent extreme weather, with several accounts of a ‘month’s rainfall in a day’ or a ‘week’s rain in an hour’ in various parts of the country, is a stark reminder that climate change is not something which is just happening somewhere else”. He warned that “we also face disruption of our seasons and its serious impact on agriculture, threats to our transportation systems and damage to housing and the predictions will only get worse.”
On Tuesday an emergency Cobra meeting was convened to discuss the government’s response to the flooding, with more rain forecast. Particularly badly affected are Yorkshire and Derbyshire where hundreds of homes have been flooded and transport disrupted after torrential rain. An early sign that Yorkshire’s River Don had breached its banks on 8 November came from a twitter report of flooding around St Oswald Church, Kirk Sandall, near Doncaster. In Derbyshire, the River Amber flooded the churchyard of All Saint’s Parish Church in South Wingfield, with gravestones visible above the water. In both cases evacuation orders were issued locally.
Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic primary was amongst six Doncaster schools closed on Monday. On the Friday before, St Mary's Catholic High School in Upper Newbold, Chesterfield, was shut, “due to flooding and its impact on the school’s electricity supply”. St Michael and All Angels Catholic Primary School in Wombwell was one of seven schools closed in Barnsley, partly because teachers could not get to work.
Many churches assisted people affected by flooding. St Cuthbert's in Fishlake, a village near Doncaster submerged by the River Don, has stayed open round the clock since 8 November. It has been a dropping off place for blankets, sleeping bags and food. Police used it for rest and hot drinks and some stranded residents slept there and at the pub next door. Supplies were distributed from the church to isolated people in remote areas by tractor. In nearby Bentley, mops and buckets were being collected at St Peter’s Church in readiness for the clean-up operation.
Tributes were paid by Anglican leaders to Annie Hall, the chair of Derby Cathedral Council and a former High Sheriff, who was swept to her death by floodwater near Matlock on 8 November.