Cumbria's floods were “catastrophic” for the county, MPs have been told.
The devastating weather hit homeowners, businesses and farmers hard and may cause mental health problems.
The comments were made by a delegation from the county who gave evidence to the influential Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee in Parliament yesterday.
Keith Little, Cumbria County Council’s cabinet member for highways and transport, also responsible for flood protection, Rob Johnson, chief executive officer at Cumbria Chamber of Commerce, Lynne Jones, a homeowner in Keswick and chairwoman of the Keswick Flood Action Group and Heather Shepherd, community support and flood recovery specialist with National Flood Forum.
Asked how the county had been affected, Ms Jones said: “Catastrophically.” “The devastation that has happened with bridges down, particularly the A591, is a disaster for a county dependent on tourism, and people getting from one side of the Lake District to the another,” she said, adding businesses would need a lot of support.
Mr Little meanwhile said: there were “It’s been a horrendous situation just before Christmas.”
After Storm Desmond hit the county last month more than 6,500 properties were flooded in Carlisle, Keswick, Cockermouth, Appleby and many other towns and villages.
In total, 94 communities across the county were affected.
Mr Little warned that there could be a devastating effect on the mental health of people who live in Cumbria, describing the county as “pretty fragile at the moment”.
“Some of our responders are also victims here, trying to get into work and do the day job and then having to deal with floods at home,” he said.
“After the 2009 floods, the health board has said that up to 2012 people were coming forward with mental health issues.”
Mr Little also raised the effect of the floods on farmers, which he said had not had much focus.
“They have been devastated. They have lost huge amounts of land and some of that land will be absolutely saturated until after planting season.”
Mr Little added that farmers had also lost livestock during the floods.
Alongside this, the councillor told MPs that Cumbria had 94 communities which were at risk of flooding and currently has response plans for 32 of these with more currently in the works.
Mr Johnston said: “10 per cent of our economy has been affected one way or another.”
He also questioned whether it was possible to improve the way in which the county responded to the situation.
“What would have happened if we had had some better resilience plans in place?”
Mr Johnston also said he was “quite pleased” with the funding released so far by the Government to help businesses.
He said that money was put into bank accounts on December 17, just 12 days after the flooding began.
Ms Shepherd called for a more integrated approach to tackling the issue of flooding, involving all organisations affected by the issue.
She also said defences needed to become a key part of national infrastructure because it now happens so regularly.
“We need to make flooding a national priority and we need sensible investment,” she said.
Neil Parish, the committee’s chairman, praised the group’s appearance.
He said: “You have given us really good evidence and have really painted the picture of what has happened.”
Above: Rob Johnston - PA Wire