In a week dominated by political announcements, I thought it would be good to offer a perspective about how nature is faring on the frontline. Last week's storm surge has had a major impact on many parts of then country especially in the East of England. I have therefore asked my colleague, Laurence Rose, Senior Sites Manager for North Norfolk to give a first-hand view of what happened and how we are dealing the consequences...
The first sign that the storm surge was arriving at Snettisham was the creaky pub-sign call of the pinkfeet flying over my house in the village. They were heading inland by the thousand, and I supposed the surge had forced them from their overnight roost on the Wash. I was to have no sense of its scale and power until next morning.
It was barely light when my colleague Paul Eele phoned from Titchwell, ten miles away. His exact words aren’t for repeating here, but they described succinctly and graphically the aftermath of a brief and awesome event. Two kilometres of five metre high sand dunes, simply wiped from the shoreline. A boardwalk lifted effortlessly and left hanging two metres above the ground. Tons of flotsam everywhere.
I headed for Snettisham reserve and parked a safe distance away. Amazingly, a few birdwatcher/sightseers were already returning to their cars. “How is it down there?” I asked. “You’ve lost a couple of hides” turned out to be a gross understatement.
The access track was washed away, meaning no access for less mobile visitors. A saltwater lake had formed and was blocking my path, but I could see from a distance one of the hides had been spun round and was facing backwards and tilted upwards. Another hide had sunk without trace, a third damaged beyond repair, along with the boardwalk and much of the concrete pathway. The huge shingle roost bank has been swept into the lagoon like crumbs off a table.
Over the next two days we gained a clearer picture of that dramatic night’s events. Strumpshaw Fen team reported that visitor facilities are largely unscathed but saltwater may have devastated freshwater wildlife – not just fish but the water beetles, snails, dragonflies and other insect larvae that are important food for fish and many waterbirds. They tested the salinity and found it to be 20% seawater – more than enough to kill the more sensitive freshwater fish and invertebrates.
Colleagues at Havergate Island in Suffolk were unable to land on the island, but from a boat they could see that there were two breaches in the sea wall and two of the hides had floated out of position. It seemed it could have been worse. And it was. When they finally got onto the island they found over 20 breaches in lagoon walls. All the lagoons and Long Meadow are under about 8ft of water, as are the picnic area and most of the pathways. The main hide may not be salvageable, the toilet block is half way up a tree the tractor shed is in pieces.
The sluices should remove the flooding from all areas by sometime in late January or early February, with no lasting ecological damage. The damage to the infrastructure is less easy to assess, some hides may reopen in March, but others may need replacing completely.
At Minsmere, North Warren and Dingle there have been several places where salt water has flooded grazing marsh and reedbed, and urgent action is underway. The dunes at Minsmere have been badly damaged with the possible loss of the grey hair grass community.
Along the coast from Titchwell, colleagues at the National Trust have been clearing up after the Brancaster Millennium Centre was flooded, while Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s Cley reserve has been completely flooded. We will help each other out, but we all face similar challenges on home turf.
So is there anything positive to say? Well, a few years ago Strumpshaw Fen experienced big surge tides so we built a new sluice to get salt water off the fen much more quickly and flush freshwater through, and we are now very glad we did. At Titchwell, were the sea defences, newly reconfigured “in case” climate change caused something like this to happen in the future, was tested sooner than we expected. I have no doubt we would have no Titchwell reserve if that work hadn’t happened just a couple of years ago.
The response from all who love these places, and many who have never visited, has been amazing. Our appeal brought in a thousand pounds an hour in its first day, and people have been offering support of all kinds. This is a great morale boost for a team in difficult times.