The PM has called the floods 'biblical' in scale, and a political war is brewing after one MP called the environment agency boss 'a cowardly little git'
A fearsome storm with 80mph winds is headed towards Britain tonight - and experts forecast it will last two weeks.
Vast areas already flooded could be battered event harder, as Prime Minister David Cameron described the damage the storms have wreak so far as "biblical".
The Met Office said: "This has been the wettest January for 248 years."
The latest round of severe weather comes as Environment Agency boss Chris Smith was branded a coward for refusing to apologise to flood victims as he finally decided to visit battered areas.
MP Ian Liddell-Grainger laid into the Labour peer over the blunders that have left thousands of homes and businesses in Somerset deluged.
And he accused Mr Smith of trying to keep his trip to the county secret so he would not be confronted by residents furious at the slashing of flood prevention funding and ignoring repeated pleas to dredge rivers.
Mr Liddell-Grainger spoke after David Cameron also finally got round to visiting Somerset.
The angry Bridgwater MP said of Lord Smith : “I will tell him what I bloody well think of him, he should go, he should walk. I’m livid. This little git has never even been on the telephone to me. I will give it to him.
“He has not told the local MPs, the local council or the local press where he is going to be. He’s a coward.
“If I just have to stick his head down the loo and flush, I will, because he is going to get this message. I don’t care how long it takes, and I don’t care how nasty and brutal we all are about it. They are going to learn.”
Locals called on Mr Smith to quit after their pleas to dredge rivers in a bid to prevent disastrous floods were snubbed time and again. As affected areas were handed an extra £15million in clean-up money yesterday after what the Met Office called the wettest winter in 248 years, some confronted the peer as he arrived.
But farmer Jim Winkworth, of Burrow Bridge, said he refused to answer their questions and would not say sorry for the chaos he believes could have been prevented with proper flood management.
He added: “We thought that’s the least he could do today and he’s not apologising or admitting any liability. He hasn’t come here to apologise, which is what he should be here for. If you apologise it means you’re admitting you got it wrong, I made a mistake, I’m sorry, but he’s not fit to do that.”
Mr Winkworth, of the Flooding on the Levels Action Group which has campaigned to have local rivers dredged, accused Lord Smith of “letting everyone down”. He said: “He is the man in charge with the answers, sadly he is the man who is giving us the answers that we do not think are correct.”
Another farmer, who did not wish to be named, said of the Environment Agency boss: “I am not the only one round here who would like him to resign. We have had this for too long, we’ve had this for five weeks.”
But Lord Smith brushed off calls for him to quit and even praised his agency’s response to the floods.
He added: “I have no intention of resigning because I am very proud of the Environment Agency and what staff have been doing around the country in the face of the most extreme weather.
“We’ve had the wettest January since records began. This has been a major, major challenge up and down the country and our staff have been working their socks off to try to sort this out for everyone, not just in Somerset.”
But Mr Cameron admitted there were lessons to be learned.
Wearing a pair of wellies, he met farmer Tony Davy, who has had to move his 65 cows off of flooded land in Fordgate. The PM said the floods had been on a “biblical” scale.
He added: “I don’t want to make any false promises. We’ll do everything we can. The resources are there, the money is there. Councils will get the money from central government. The military are on standby to help where they can.
“We’ll go as fast as we can, but tragically these things will take some time to get right.”
But Shadow Environment Secretary Maria Eagle said Mr Cameron’s dilly dallying over the floods has made the situation worse. She added: “One afternoon in his wellies doesn’t make up for Cameron’s disastrous decision to axe vital flood prevention funding and failure to get a grip on his government’s response sooner.”
As the row rumbled on, flooding continued to cause havoc and misery across much of the South.
Dozens of homes in stricken villages on the Somerset Levels were evacuated with the help of marines and police. Office worker Dee Puplett had to flee her house at Moorland with husband Richard and their five children in the early hours of yesterday.
The 37-year-old said: “We had no choice. The water was up to the door.”
Neighbour Linda Owen, 56, added: “I’ve watched the village go under, house by house.” And resident Hayley Matthews wept as she was evacuated.
In Buckinghamshire, sewage flowed through the streets of Chalfont St Peter as the drainage system became overwhelmed with floodwater.
Motorists on the nearby M25 faced delays of more than two hours as two northbound carriageways were closed when they became submerged.
There were last night two Met Office severe flood warnings – where life is in peril – for the South West.
A further 164 flood warnings and 302 flood alerts were issued for the South West, South East and Wales.
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