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Floods - A Threat to Life
In the last month of 2006, the threat, and the reality, of flooding has been felt by many people in Scotland. Water is one of those awesome parts of the environment - beautiful and invigorating in the right conditions, yet at other times, terrifying.
Environmental Protection authorities are responsible for issuing warnings, the highest of which, the Severe Flood Warning, is described as follows: (1)Rivers are likely to reach a level that will cause widespread danger, severe disruption and a risk to life. Flooding to significant numbers of properties, businesses and travel networks is expected.
All this set me thinking more broadly about lessons that can be learned as they apply to our personal lives. Before turning to these, Iet's consider some of the principles relating to flooding and flood prevention.
Avoiding the Threat
Avoiding the threat of flooding involves assessing the risk, preparing the likely defences and finally putting them in place.
Risk Assessment
Risk assessment takes into account many factors including historical rainfall and flood records, physical geography, tidal conditions and future climate projections. Where the risk of human and financial loss is high, plans for flood control are developed. These vary from supplying sandbags to the development of hugely expensive flood defences like those put in place in 2002 to protect Perth.
Action Stations
In the event of a severe flood warning, a response is usually required.
Sandbags may need to be distributed and barriers built. Gates may need to be put in place. The warning is only of value if it is acted on.
Will it Work?
Because most flooding is infrequent, the prepared defences are only as good as the assumptions made in the design. We want to be able to trust the design, but as was found in Milnathort, the design assumptions were unable to prevent flooding under the particular conditions experienced.
Global Flooding
On top of all the preparation for local flood conditions, the threat of rising water levels caused by melting polar icecaps has potentially far reaching consequences - global impact.
Global inundation did once happen - God tells us so.
A warning was given - 120 years in advance (2). One man, Noah, made preparations for his defence against the flood. In fact, God gave him a design that was sure to work and God made the final watertight seal on the door (we are told 'the LORD shut him in' (3)).
The consequences of this flood were immense :
So He destroyed all living things which were on the face of the ground: both man and cattle, creeping thing and bird of the air. They were destroyed from the earth. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark remained alive.
Genesis 7:23 (4)
One wonders why more did not heed the warning. A possible explanation is that as they had never experienced such conditions, they could not imagine how it could happen. The threat was not real enough to them. We will come back to this point.
The Good News
There is good news in this account. God promised that never again would the whole earth be flooded:
"Thus I establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth."
Genesis 9:11
Testing the Promise
What re-assurance do we have? How can we trust the promise?
"I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth.
Genesis 9:13
Every time we see a rainbow in the sky, we can be assured that there will be no global inundation ever again. The flip side is that we also have to remember that the unthinkable did happen.
Severe Flood Warning!
God has given us other promises. One is that Jesus Christ will return to the earth to rule with justice. The Bible speaks of a time of judgement when those who have rejected God in their lives will be condemned. (5)Those who have found the right relationship with God will be given life for ever in a perfected world. Even in the first century, never mind the twenty-first century, there were those who mocked at such a thought!
...knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation."
2 Peter 3:3-4
Those who lived before the flood made the same mistake. Such conditions had never been experienced before, so why should they occur in their experience? The great mistake was they ignored that it was God that created everything 'by His word'.
For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water.
2 Peter 3:5-6
Plan Your Defences
The Bible gives us God's warnings. It also helps us to plan our defences. To do that effectively we must read and follow the advice given. We encourage you to do that and offer you a free plan to help you start, or continue reading, systematically.
(1)http://www.sepa.org.uk/flooding/warnings/index.aspx
(2)Genesis 6:3
(3)Genesis 6:16
(4)Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright ©1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
(5)Daniel 12:2, 2Timothy 4:1
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