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  • well for communities here in South Wales, which had been devastated by Storm Dennis.

  • There was Maur heavy rain today and in some areas, more flooding to go with it.

  • At least 1000 properties across Wales have now been affected by the severe weather that's also left roads, bridges and other infrastructure needing Repairs were behind me here in pointy preach one of the streets that saw some of the most serious damage.

  • And it's a picture repeated, of course, across South Wales and indeed other areas of Wales.

  • Well, Home affairs correspondent Andy Davis is with me now.

  • Andi, I've only been really wandering around here for the last two or three hours.

  • You've been here, what, two or three days?

  • What do you find on the streets here?

  • This area?

  • Well, we have bean to quite a few places on dhe.

  • It is a pretty bleak picture out there.

  • What really strikes you is just how many small communities have been affected by this.

  • Such is the geography of the valleys here on the task facing the cancel right now is mammoth.

  • They just put out a statement this evening saying they've got vehicles, damaged bridges that they have to repair.

  • They got that contend with.

  • They've also got hundreds of families.

  • They need to find accommodation if they haven't done so already.

  • They're providing immediate hardship payments to each household of £500 on There is a huge amount of hardship out there that we've encountered.

  • There is really desperation on the part of some people right now.

  • Pleasant street pen tra in the Rhone Valley in the midst of recovering from Sunday's flood.

  • And this morning it happens all over again.

  • Lots of people here have no insurance.

  • They've lost absolutely everything on dhe.

  • I guess it's going.

  • I don't even know where we search for the money from last night, they were searching for answers in this village, so you send up clean, clean.

  • You spent bloody Thumb's on questions for other agencies, Perhaps, but this is one cancel, among others, under enormous strain.

  • I could tell he was in sound bites, probably that you run the cruise.

  • We travel.

  • The number of staff were on duty.

  • We brought Thompson from Bristol further away, the name thing we could ready for just over one.

  • This is simple.

  • Staggering is how he describes the scale of the damage.

  • Here.

  • There are crisis meetings and village holes and day centers across these valleys.

  • Important pre three joined some of the army of volunteers now making up food, past stacking boxes of cleaning products and Children's clothes.

  • And it's where we meet Kylie Robinson, her friend exhausted, frightened and overwhelmed.

  • The river beauties, bunks, little, My house and holes flooded all my house.

  • My car.

  • Today, my old my kid's toys.

  • Everything up.

  • There's nothing left having your Children typing.

  • Nobody.

  • Well, shut down.

  • Even talk.

  • My second young gust, he's waking up in night, Ms Bye, Fine in Rome for Colin Tap alone, it's estimated around 1000 homes and businesses were flooded.

  • You think livelihood risk?

  • Hundreds briefed the first minister's office.

  • Yes, in the government, we think their prosperity as many as 3 to 400 jobs, A country at risk.

  • One of state alone in a forest area with Nagato tre poorest, industrious state was almost wiped out.

  • And if you needed any further illustration of just how much pressure this council is under right now, have a look at that minds.

  • Inside another land slip discovered just above the council headquarters not on the scale is the one entire list hand on Sunday.

  • But the Welsh government now wants Westminster involved in risk assessing other former colliery spoiled tips and, if some streets get the political focus, the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was in South Wales today.

  • Others feel forgotten, like here in the common valley, by the clutter where the clocks stopped at 2:30 a.m. On Sunday.

  • On the flood, marks reached nearly six foot, leaving this woman's disabled sister dragging herself up the stairs to flee the flood and out of this doorway, another neighbor having to swim to safety.

  • What was the first thing you noticed when you when you got back in here the horrific smell, the sea witch and the horrible smile and the thick black sludge?

  • Rebecca Chadwick said.

  • It was three days before a council official came to offer support.

  • He came into the house.

  • You said you're in a bit better condition than anybody else in my city because for two days solid, I have had my friends from school because I'm a teacher and card.

  • If they have been up and supported me and I wouldn't have done it without them.

  • You know, I've got no help talk my insurance paid buildings and contents insurance.

  • I've informed them the live next door to a stream, and they won't pay up because it was storm related.

  • One person came down and she said to me, She said she looked delicious.

  • Isn't his 18?

  • How few?

  • Because I know you've got nothing.

  • I'm a proud person than people coming up to me, giving me money.

  • I never thought in a 1,000,000 years I would be having to do with that.

  • Welsh government, which held an emergency summit yesterday, is providing £10 million of initial funding and calling on the Treasury for more.

  • But of course, it's not always about homes and businesses in Fam Braddock.

  • It's about the hobby, which Andrew Gala plumber spent years nurturing for his sons.

  • Stand back, let me show.

  • Under the rest of it.

  • His lovingly reared 60 strong prizewinning ducks and chickens, nearly all of them gone.

  • It's just every state, and they say, Yes, it is cold in the kitchen things up today, but but to see things like this is it is our breaking, especially for the Children on the time and effort we put in everybody in a lot.

  • She's gone, He's gone.

  • She's gone.

  • She's still here.

  • At least we got the photographs in the memories on me with the shows and everything else.

  • And we rebuild with me slowly.

  • Yeah, And so the exhausting business of rebuilding begins for so many communities now struggling amidst the wreckage of that brutal weekend storm.

  • Well, im me stays with me.

  • One thing just in my few hours here and yes, you're talking to people about floods, but they very quickly we've in the fact that the industry has long since moved on the talk about austerity.

  • I guess it's easy to see why people feel that if they have a voice, it's not heard we on these valleys, perhaps in the way that it should be.

  • Well, I think in the immediate sphere they are.

  • They feel that they're being unheard because they can't the council here.

  • The politicians simply can't get round Tual the different communities.

  • And that's the point that I was making earlier.

  • It is so vast that there are communities where the council have traveled the number of officers they've got at.

  • They have put everything they've got out there, but they can't get round to these communities.

  • Hence you'll find in that report terrorists just down the road from here, where it took the council about three days to get to them.

  • The Welsh government is responding, but the world government is now asking for help.

  • Is asking for Westminster to hear the cries of help here.

  • Now, whether they get the funding from the Treasury they say they need for the tens of millions pounds of infrastructure repair.

  • We don't we don't know.

  • We haven't heard from the UK government specifically on that.

  • But there are a lot of issues now that need addressing in terms of longer term damage, and it is going to cost a huge amount of money and a ll the time.

  • We have people here who were saying We're not worried about the infrastructure damage.

  • We want to know how we're going to be fed and where our Children are going to sleep tonight.

  • Thanks, thanks.

  • Indeed.

  • And in that very much, I think it's going to be something we're going to be discussing with local politicians from the valleys heiress in just a few minutes time.

  • But now let's move a little bit further north, Hon.

  • Indeed, out of Wales across England, there remains what they're calling the threat off.

  • Significant flooding is heavy.

  • Rain continues to fall on already saturated ground.

  • Environment agency has tonight warned of worsening conditions across parts of your shop, but the fear or flooding also remains on the Welsh English border.

  • Our correspondent, Claire Fallon is in Hampton Bishop, near Hereford, a village cut off for several days following storm Dennis Claire.

  • Well, according to those leading the emergency response, we may now need to rethink all of the models for what unprecedented looks like.

  • And that's because over the last couple of weeks, previous records have been broken on because there is increasingly an acknowledgement that this will happen more and more and on a bigger scale.

  • We are on the outskirts off village here this evening because frankly, unless you've got a four by four or a canoe, you can't go any further.

  • It is right in between two rivers that still have severe flood warnings in place, and Storm Dennis dumped a huge amount of water on this area over the weekend.

  • Earlier today, though, we did make it into the village.

  • And here is what we found there.

  • Yeah, most get.

  • If it rains in Wales, that's what we have.

  • A problem because Rivers entered the floor here that way, you think happens regularly.

  • Losing got canoes.

  • It's a lot of news.

  • Some of them move their cars because he knew it's currently move the closet, but more differed.

  • If you look at the radar, you can see there's heavy rain come in this heavy rain across a lacrosse whales right away to the north of Scotland, there's a band of rain.

  • But while you can't predict for the firefighter, we heard from there who was going around in the village checking on people in their homes, he talked about the forecast of more rain over the coming days.

  • And the environment agency is saying that there is a risk off significant flooding again in some places not just here, but also open areas across the headlines in areas of Yorkshire that have already been so badly affected over the last couple of weeks and bear in mind once the rain falls in the hills, it takes days to get to the rivers, so even when the rain stops, the risk does not end.

  • Fine.

  • Thanks very much indeed.

  • Well, joining us now.

  • Importantly, previous me, Canton, New Labour's assemblyman.

  • Assembly men before pointy breathe on the Anne would applied coming.

  • Thanks both for coming out in the intern, at least the dry.

  • But it's pretty cold in here tonight.

  • Something that that I suspect you're both agree on me and I'll ask you this first, as Anne Davis was saying, was making a very graphic picture here.

  • This is way beyond the reach of borrow County Council.

  • I dare say, you'd say beyond the reach of the National Assembly, human minds when it comes to the money that's needed, how do we cope financially?

  • Just getting the money that's leading into this disaster, where the whole thing needs a complete rethink?

  • It's not gonna be enough just to patch things up for people.

  • Now we need to think about longer term plan in.

  • We know more of these weather events are coming.

  • Climate change is telling us that, so we need to ensure that we can mitigate on dhe prevent some of the flooding that we've seen has been preventable.

  • You know, if you're talking about built up debris and culverts that should have been cleared.

  • So there's things you can do to prevent on.

  • Then they're also needs to be packages of support in place for people to be able to rebuild their lives.

  • So many people have been affected, don't even have insurance.

  • That's an affordable for people.

  • As things stand, it's going to become even more unaffordable in the future.

  • So there needs to be some thought about just something like insurance, and that in itself is gonna cost quite a lot of money, Right?

  • MacAnthony of the leader of Walsh's, suddenly saying, Today, you need tens of millions of many Maur tens of minutes treasure aren't going to give you a blank check.

  • Well, ultimately, if we're either going to deal with this a Z u K as a whole, which means that the funding has to be put in.

  • What we are facing, though, are unprecedented levels of weather to storms.

  • Within one week, the waters hit the highest level ever has a meter higher than has ever been recorded, and I think that many people have told me that they've seen their ever high.

  • They've seen flooding before, but they have never seen anything on this scale.

  • Now it's £10 million coming from our government, as the first step is money from the local council.

  • But in the longer term on a U K level, because there's flooding across the whole of England, Scotland.

  • And if you look at you look more broader globally, that the has to be a very, very substantial increase in the amount of money that is provided.

  • A UK level two across the UK toe actually start looking defenses.

  • Flood defenses that were perhaps prepared the sixties and seventies and eighties for a level of flooding that we have now exceeded beyond all expectations.

  • But people will be, say, a pox on all your houses.

  • Climatologist models have been warning for years and years and right of extreme rainfall.

  • Events applied weren't ready for it.

  • Stories weren't running labor weren't ready.

  • I think you're absolutely that none of us saw this coming.

  • None of us expected the level of flooding on this particular scale and that's why our whole approach now I think, has to change in terms of planning.

  • I mean, in the valleys, we have limited scope because the valleys are particular geography.

  • Our towns are former mining towns are based by rivers and so on.

  • So we have to look at the older flood defenses that were there and how we actually develop those.

  • But we have to look at how we plan back.

  • There should have been an element of plan in in this.

  • We have been told for many years that climate change is come in.

  • This is not a one off.

  • This is gonna happen again.

  • So we need to make sure things that in place, you know, there needs to be a return to the land reclamation grounds that would available five years ago On that haven't been available since.

  • Yes, there needs to be a reform of the Barnett formula.

  • If we were funded according to need Yudin Weir's, then we would be able to meet the needs of, I think maybe let me through some of the people who got the answer to this in something of the Tories.

  • The conservatives.

  • They've got a new agriculture bill before Parliament now, talking about natural for no natural manager on the floor with you, actually right.

  • But the problem is, the problem here is natural.

  • 100 of flooding is clearly something.

  • We have to look up in those areas where you could do it.

  • But that is not something that applies in the valleys.

  • Natural flooding.

  • But we don't have flood plains here.

  • We have steep size.

  • The water pours down.

  • We have to have something.

  • Events wouldn't wait.

  • Stop building on foot.

  • But that's the major thing.

  • Is the scale of water coming down on the fact that the defense is that we have at the moment aren't sufficient, right?

  • There could be many lessons with points points on this not long ago.

  • Not long ago I was up in the northwest yours, Fairborn talking about a whole town which might have removed because of rising sea levels.

  • Okay, people were saying that there's no strategy Welsh Assembly can afford this.

  • Westminster don't order do about it.

  • This is exactly the same thing.

  • There's no strategy between our countries.

  • In these are put anything goes in the years and trying to sing a very loud song The open that this will be put off into the future, you know, gonna be put off into the project.

  • It's happening now, claim it changes you and we need to do with final quick thought We have a wake up call.

  • A nod with these events of the last couple of days of a wake up call in dealing with climate jail on the consequences of that On the scale of it on the scale.

  • Right.

  • Thank you both very much indeed.

  • Get warm.

  • Thanks to you.

  • This afternoon here in point Breeze, I dropped in on a prominent environmental campaigner.

  • Currently no campaigning, but cleaning out his shop.

  • Rex, of course, by the floods here it's a story of global politics, of the climate crisis coming home in ways perhaps he could never have predicted.

  • See that when I came in.

  • Originally, this is amazing.

  • Into a piece or two or three days.

  • This is amazing what you've achieved.

  • Yeah.

  • No, it was like the whole place being smashed up basically was about to my waist.

  • So what's that 33 whole food shop where KASPER works has already come a long way since being inundated.

  • But MME or food for thought Where anymore needed for a committed green campaigner.

  • You know, you don't quite get the full extent of the damage of it until you actually see it yourself.

  • You know people are struggling here already, you know, and then being hit by climate change disasters like this, which we're gonna get more, more frequent.

  • This is the banks of the tap on the banks of the Thames, right?

  • Economic bracket.

  • Right.

  • But, I mean, it's gonna be to the banks of the Thames as well at some point, you know, But we don't really know.

  • It's an emergency.

  • And people need to recognize that he wanted to show me Maur of what party?

  • Breathe has become a lot business.

  • Just survive, You know, they just get by.

  • May be enough to pay pay a wage, you know, maybe a low wage and, you know, then they're gonna maybe to claim some insurance, but them that'll be the end around the corner.

  • The Welsh language club run by volunteers like Justin.

  • Well, I was actually here when it started flooding within 20 minutes.

  • The entire courtyard was full of war and it was already sleeping through the door.

  • And our guys, we might as well go home.

  • Lost orders right inside.

  • The water here was five feet deep.

  • Repeated floods mean no insurance on these premises.

  • So mixed emotions for exhausted volunteers like Jane Reese heartbreak of seeing so much so ruined all over again, but the enduring support of people from the valleys beyond.

  • You know the club has come back after floods before.

  • But I must say we're really grateful for all the volunteers who have come and helped us out.

  • People not only from Ponta pre the area, but from Cardiff.

  • Murtha Bridge End that probably about a 80 people over the last couple of days of Yeah, yeah, yes, people with buckets and mops And you know, anything they could do.

  • Outback.

  • The Taft still raging in Spate but contained until the next time.

  • That's it from Port au Prince, back now to Jackie in the studio.

well for communities here in South Wales, which had been devastated by Storm Dennis.

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