Apres Le Deluge?

'After the flood' in Valencia, it's clearly apposite for the EU to reconsider responses to extreme weather events. In 2014, Federike Otto founded World Weather Attribution to quickly evaluate whether an extreme weather event could be linked to the climate crisis. This was a reaction to the general hesitancy to connect any particular event to climate change. Cause and effect is a serious issue. Scientists always have to 'hedge their bets' when dealing with such complex phenomena. A quick (and 'dirty') World Weather Attribution analysis of the events in Spain, suggest that the climate emergency made the extreme rainfall about 12% more intense. It also indicates that these once rare events, are becoming markedly more common. Otto, however, says there's an urgent need to improve the preparedness of folk in their responses to such emergencies. As she points out, it's all very well predicting the event, but do people know what to do? There's been several cases, in Germany and Spain, of people being killed in unevacuated care homes (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/04/spain-deaths-europe-realities-extreme-weather-flooding). The EU provides necessary finance to help with 'clean-ups' after extreme weather events. Otto suggests, however, there's also clearly a need to provide money to help communities plan effective responses. Can folk help mitigate the effects by limiting the spread car-friendly water impervious surfaces? Can planning be done, allowing rivers to flow, without first flooding into people's homes. Do locals know where to go in the event of flooding, violent storms etc.?