This weekend members of the Welsh RNLI Flood Rescue Team (FRT) have been invited by the people of Cockermouth to visit the town to mark the first anniversary since the horrific floods in 2009.
Paul Filby, an electrician from Criccieth is a volunteer crew member at the local lifeboat station. Paul has also been specially trained to save lives in flooding disasters and a member of the charity’s volunteer Flood Rescue Team. He had never been to Cockermouth before the floods, and is eager to see how the town has recovered and develop within the year.
‘The odd thing about being with the RNLI, whether it be with the lifeboats or the FRT, is that you live an ordinary life, but when something happens you’re quickly taken out of that situation and sent out on a rescue. You never expect to go out to a flooding incident, but you do get a feeling that something might happen – you watch the news and wait for that call.’
Evacuating people from their homes was a 24-hour operation. More than forty members of the RNLI Flood Rescue Team from across the North of England and North Wales joined other emergency services in the mammoth flood rescue operation in Cumbria.
‘We could see the effects of the floods before we even reached the town, so we knew that things were bad – but we didn’t expect for things to be as bad as what we saw when we arrived. Flood water was running everywhere, through houses and streets – everywhere.
‘We would try and encourage people to leave their houses and go somewhere safe. But people don’t want to leave, we all feel safer in our own home, but it’s not always the case when it’s surrounded by floodwater.’
After inspecting the houses the team would put a red tape on the doors so that everyone could see that it had already been searched. As Paul and the team were travelling along the street, a fragile hand caught his eye.
‘I could see a hand waving from one of the windows. An elderly lady had become trapped on the second floor of her house, the first floor had been flooded and she couldn’t get out. As we evacuated her from the house she was dressed in her best clothes and was more worried that she had caused us trouble…which obviously she didn’t but she did make me smile.
‘If you live in a town you don’t think about the lifeboats, but to see the boat going down the high street was a very odd experience for many. The RNLI is there to save anyone who’s in trouble, if they’re on the sea or anywhere else. The public are the ones who fund the RNLI so it’s important that we help wherever possible.’
As a charitable organisation that receives no Government funding, the RNLI relies on sponsorship from organisations such as Toolstation, allowing the Flood Rescue Team volunteers to go on saving lives.
The volunteer FRT are specially trained to help save lives in the most difficult and dangerous flooding situations. By returning to Cockermouth this weekend they look forward to learn more from their experiences so that that they can continue to save lives in floods and at sea.
