British emergency services battle effects of severe storms, flooding

Emergency services in weather-battered Britain were on Sunday attempting to cope with a trail of damage caused by severe winter storms and flooding - the worst such sustained period of stormy weather for two decades. According to dpa, weather forecaster Matt Dobson, of Meteogroup, predicted that the "nasty weather" of the past few days was set to continue. "It's very unusual to have so many powerful storms come in one after the other in such a short space of time," he said. "We haven't seen anything like this since about 1991." The Environment Agency has issued dozens of flood warnings and alerts, with coastal areas in the south of England the most at risk because of a combination of the storms and unusually high tides. A meeting of the government's special Cobra emergency committee was called on Sunday, chaired by Environment Secretary Owen Paterson. He said he wanted "to ensure everything is being done on the ground to prepare for bad weather ahead."