Floods
The floods in England and Wales inspired Wingnut to look up relief maps and other information about the affected towns. Every now and again, a despairing, "they're insane" would float up from behind his screen. Poor Dutchman.
The cause of his pain and confusion was that significant amounts of housing is built in areas still vulnerable to 1 in 100 year events. In the Netherlands, they generally aim to protect against "the perfect storm": a 1 in 10,000 year event.
However, I think the UK have less to lose with this kind of flooding than the Dutch who, among other things, have the memory of the flood of '53 spurring them on. The UK has had flood deaths too in the past, but 1,835 people dying in one go gets attention in the way that losing ten here and ten there doesn't.
The cause of his pain and confusion was that significant amounts of housing is built in areas still vulnerable to 1 in 100 year events. In the Netherlands, they generally aim to protect against "the perfect storm": a 1 in 10,000 year event.
However, I think the UK have less to lose with this kind of flooding than the Dutch who, among other things, have the memory of the flood of '53 spurring them on. The UK has had flood deaths too in the past, but 1,835 people dying in one go gets attention in the way that losing ten here and ten there doesn't.