I think you might be exaggerating somewhat. If you can name be 5-10 major floods in the last 10 years. If you get 10, you're not exaggerating at all, though I don't think there's been more than 3 in the last 10 years.
We have this one, the Glouscester one and I am sure there's one more. It is possible than the next flood is larger than the other...so "The scale of the flooding is unheard of" could be quite accurate. Especially if floods on that scale are rare.
Also...I remember the one from 2 years ago, I mentioned it in my first post and INH commented on it.
Yes - flood defenses are built in response to floods, and the Lake District was one of those places that had flood defenses built for it, no doubt to avoid anything like what happened in Gloustershire 2 years ago...but they were useless, the defense ought to have stopped the flood, but it didn't. You could take that as a suggestion for why the flood could be worse than previous ones...after all, the defenses were most likely built in thinking of the scale of floods we could potentially get. If it exceeds expectations, then there's room for people to be surprised.
People know we get floods...some floods provided fun in my childhood...but they're minor ones. Larger floods happen once in a while. Major floods are rare from what I understand.
