Geog task 51 – exam question

Discuss the impacts of storm events in the British Isles and evaluate the responses to them (40 marks)

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The British Isles has a cool temperate western maritime climate including four seasons and various weather conditions. Storms come and go some so weak they are unnoticed and some bring in heavy winds and torrential rain and thunder. Depressions are areas of low atmospheric pressure which produce cloudy, rainy and windy weather. These low-pressure systems often begin in the Atlantic, moving eastwards towards the UK. They are responsible for the UK's …show more content…

This caused surface waves to be amplified and increased the height further. Almost every death was a result from the flooding with a few from collapsed buildings.
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Looking at the responses to the storms of the British Isles, we can see that no evacuation took place. This may be because Britain was not expecting a huge storm such as this. The British Isles did not have a hurricane warning system which on the other hand New Orleans did have such a system in place. The 1987 storm in the U.K was a very rare event and no one was prepared for it. A storm of this strength and power only comes every 200 years. The British Isles had a very poor response with little emergency services and help. Britain is used to constant cyclonic weather for the majority of the time and do not expect extreme weather conditions such as that of the hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico. New Orleans had sufficient measures in place such as emergency shelters and services.
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How good the response is can be linked to how severe the impacts of the storm were. In the Great Storm of 1987 the response was very fast. The emergency services cleared the area as fast as they could clearing roads and highways. Many people volunteered themselves to clean up rubbish and objects off