11 February 2014 - A last stand against the floods
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A last stand against the floods: Defiant Sam Notaro's home appears set to succumb to water
Rob Williams (The independent)
A house appears like an island amid acres of flooded land engulfed by a seemingly neverending flow of icy cold brown water.
It's a set of images that has come to represent a particularly British type of defiance when faced with the floods wreaking havoc across the country, deluging homes and destroying businesses and livelihoods.
The building in the images is Sam Notaro's house on the edge of the village of Moorland - which was evacuated amid rising flood waters on Friday.
Read on...
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A bit of context
Andrew Johnson (The Independent)
After spending £10,000 erecting a 5ft-tall dyke around the home he built himself, in a desperate bid to keep floodwaters at bay, Sam Notaro thought it was safe. But now he fears his last-ditch defence, which has turned his four-acre, £1m property into a tiny island (visible in the foreground of our front-page picture), is about to be breached.
It is not just nature he blames. The Environment Agency, he says, stymied his plans with its bureaucracy. “We wanted to start bringing the soil in on Tuesday,” the 40-year-old builder said. “But the agency said we had to apply for permission, and that would take six weeks.” After hurried negotiations the agency gave way and Mr Notaro, with his firm’s diggers, began work three days ago.
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Another point of view
Richard Smith (The Mirror)
The defiant dad who refused to abandon his £1million home to floods told of his constant battle to protect it .
While many families evacuated their houses on the swamped Somerset Levels, builder Sam Notaro, 40, stayed put to maintain his DIY flood defences.
His property has become an island but he has managed to keep out the water and the horrors that lurk in the flood – like dead snakes.
Sam, who built the house in the village of Moorland himself, said: “This is our home and I’m determined to stay here and look after it.
Read on...
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More on UK floods (on the political front)
Patrick Wintour (The Guardian)
David Cameron has ordered his feuding cabinet ministers to put an end to infighting and sniping at the Environment Agency as alarm spread in government about the potential scale of serious flooding along the Thames Valley later this week.
The prime minister, who returned to the flooded West Country on Monday, was said to be exasperated by the communities secretary, Eric Pickles, who attacked the competence of the Environment Agency on Sunday and apologised for the policy decisions taken by the environment secretary, Owen Paterson, who is recuperating from eye surgery.
Ed Miliband said finger-pointing at a time of national crisis was disgraceful.
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"11 February 2014 - A last stand against the floods", La Clé des Langues [en ligne], Lyon, ENS de LYON/DGESCO (ISSN 2107-7029), novembre 2014. Consulté le 24/04/2024. URL: https://cle.ens-lyon.fr/anglais/key-story/archives-revue-de-presse-2014/11-february-2014-a-last-stand-against-the-floods