Son who found mother’s body after Storm Babet calls for more flood defence money | Flooding

The son of an 83 -year -old woman who died during Storm Babet called to invest more money in the protection of houses against floods.

An investigation at the Chesterfield coroner court learned on Friday that Maureen Gilbert had drowned at her house in Chesterfield after the Rother River overflowed on October 21, 2023 during the storm.

Storm Babet made seven lives across the United Kingdom, led to the evacuation of more than 10,000 people from their home and caused more than 450 million pounds sterling of material damage.

The assistant coroner Matthew Kewley delivered a short narrative conclusion, declaring that Gilbert had “died at home because of drowning in flooding waters caused by Storm Babet”, and that he thought that there was still a risk for life on his way due to unbearable flood defenses.

“I am concerned about the case of another unfavorable weather event such as Storm Babet, that there is a permanent risk to life at Tapton Terrace with regard to people who can be elderly, vulnerable or immobile,” he said.

Paul Gilbert, who found the body of her mother floating at home after receiving a call from her saying that the water entered the house, agreed that the street in which his mother died was still in danger, telling journalists gathered before the courthouse that more funding for the defenses of the floods could save lives.

“More money must be invested in floods, because it is something that will obviously continue to happen,” he said. “More money must be available and more long -term plans must be put in place. I always believe that the dredging of the rivers and the cleaning of the rivers for me, for me, is the most important thing. ”

The investigation learned that in the evening of flooding, fire and rescue services “did everything they could reasonably and safely” to save Gilbert but had to stop once it was too dark. A request was made so that Gilbert’s home was reintegrated the next morning, but due to fire control rooms and rescue of the derbyshire that drops, the request did not come and no re -based re -based.

Paul Gilbert, who spoke during the investigation, who started on Monday and lasted throughout the week, told court that he had not blamed the services to technical failure, but still wanted him to have been the only one to find his body.

“The failures of the drop in the system and the messages that are not transmitted are difficult,” he said. “Because if it had happened and the firefighters had entered and had found my mother, I would not have had to find her who was one of my biggest nightmares since that day, finding my mother, but the systems have been falling.”

Kewley said that he was “convinced that he could not say, in balance, that the result would necessarily have been different if this re -based had taken place” and that the fires and rescue of the derbyshire had taken “important measures to learn and identify the improvements after the Babet storm”.

The Vice-Director of the Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service firefighters, Clive Stanbrook, said in a statement: “I would like to repeat our sincere condolences to the whole family of Maureen and friends who lost someone they loved in devastating and painful circumstances.

“I want to give insurance that we have already learned from this incident, we have invested massively in our systems and that we have made changes to our operational processes, something noted by the coroner.”