Whether you were trapped in your home, collecting sandbags, or merely facing painfully slow journeys to work, it has been difficult to avoid comparisons with 2007.

Some, such as those living in Abingdon Road and surrounding streets, may well tell you it has actually been worse.

And certainly for the emergency services and anyone forced to wade through flooded streets, the experience of coping with flood water in November is altogether more chilling than facing the challenge in July, as we did five years ago.

But while in no way wishing to underestimate the misery suffered by families and businesses in low-lying areas of the county, like those evacuated from their homes, nor the efforts of firefighters rescuing motorists stuck in deep water, it does appear that this time the county has been altogether better prepared.

Sandbags were made quickly available to thousands of homes, mercifully in most cases only as a precautionary measure, while barriers avoided homes being ruined as waters rose across West Oxford. Council and agency leaders have been deservedly praised by Banbury MP Sir Tony Baldry and others, with flood defence works having protected hundreds of homes.

 

Of course none of this will bring much comfort for those who found themselves trapped inside their homes in South Oxford without power, gas or functioning toilets and flooded basements. But it is clear that emergency services were able to focus on a limited number of flood blackspots such as Kennington and the Abingdon Road. Reducing the risks to homes on floodplains is going to be even more taxing.

Oxford City Council leader Bob Price, who would like to see a metal barrier behind the allotments on Abingdon Road, is right to insist lessons can be learned from this week.

Thankfully, local communities have responded to the recent days of anxiety and inconvenience with remarkable calmness and appreciation for the work of Environment Agency and council staff, as well as the emergency services. But who knows whether another single day’s heavy rainfall might have led to an altogether different response.

A crisis was narrowly averted. It was not 2007 revisited, through a combination of luck and planning and the absence of references to a “once in a lifetime event.”