Environment Secretary Therese Coffey blames flooding caused by Storm Babet on the wrong kind of rain.

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The Environment Secretary suggested that damage from Storm Babet was harder to predict because the rain was coming from the east.

Therese Coffey told MPs a "rapid" would be carried out after pointing out that some flood-affected communities felt they could have received more pumps to prevent them from being overwhelmed.

At least seven people are believed to have died in the “unprecedented” weather event, while hundreds were forced to flee their homes in Scotland and the north-east of England. The storm caused a rare red weather warning in the north, with torrential downpours hitting the country for several days.

Testifying before the Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Secretary for the environment told MPs: "One of the things that happened particularly with Storm Babet is that we are very good, with the Met Office and the Agency's flood forecasting for Environment [center], which forecasts the weather normally because most of our rain tends to come from the west.

“We kind of have this as an art. It was rain coming from the other side and we don't have as much experience with that, so our accuracy in predicting where such heavy rain would fall was not to the same degree as if it had happened.

“So the Environment Agency had moved assets from parts of the country more towards Yorkshire and the North East and that way.

< p>“But I’m aware that there were still some places that thought they could have done it. with a few extra push-ups. p>Ms Coffey promised to carry out a “rapid review” alongside the Environment Agency to understand “what could have been done better”.

“Clearly, for people whose homes were flooded this weekend, I fully recognize that this is a very distressing time for them,” Ms Coffey told the committee.

“A large number of them will have to leave their homes for a considerable time. »

Hundreds of people were left homeless following Storm Babet, with around 1,250 properties in England flooded, according to the E...