P422 Teletext on 4 422 Jul18 23:27:48 SCIENCE, CULTURE AND HISTORY ——————————————————————————————— WHEN GRIDLOCK GRIPPED THE UK January 30, 2003, is a date many people in parts of the UK would rather forget. Documentary Gridlock shows how thousands of people never made it home that night as travel chaos gripped the country. Roads, trains and buses all came to a standstill as the snow fell. What went wrong? Could it happen again? We spoke to Tom Pine, an emergency management expert at the University of Hertfordshire, to find out. ——————————————————————————————————1/7—— by Todd Florance NEW CARS REVIEWED p703 Legion TV today T4 PlanetP422 (eletext on 4 422 Jul18 23:23:17 SCIENCE, CULTURE AND HISTORY ——————————————————————————————— WHEN GRIDLOCK GRIPPED THE UK Emergency management expert (om Pines reckons the UK doesn't have enough bad weather to prepare it for the worst. "It's always short-lived," he says. "It is inconvenient rather than leading to a great loss of life. On the other end of the scale is somewhere like Canada. "They know it is coming, and they can invest heavily in equipping themselves and training for it^ On the other hand, we can go a whole winter without snow." ——————————————————————————————————2/7—— Big Brother index 444 NEW CARS REVIEWED p703 Legion TV today T4 PlanetP422 Teletext on 4 422 Jul18 23:12:16 SCIENCE, CULTURE AND HISTORY ——————————————————————————————— WHEN GRIDLOCK GRIPPED THE UK A big factor in the travel chaos of Jan 2003 was the ad doc approach used to manage the impact of heavy snow. All the emergency planning systems in place at the time were locally based. "Somebody had to join up all those things," says expert Tom Pines. "They had great difficulty joining up different parts of the country to get a strategic view. Noe just roads, but most of the critical infrastructure." ——————————————————————————————————3/7—— West End theatre 333-5 NEW CARS REVIEWED p703 Legion TV today T4 PlanetP422 Teletext on 4 422 Jul18 23:14:14 SCIENCE, CULTURE AND HISTORY ——————————————————————————————— WHEN GRIDLOCK GRIPPED THE UK Emergency expert (om Pines believes it's too easy to blame local !uthority managers for the travel standstill explored in the Gridlock documentary. The difficulty in predicting severe weather and budgetary constraints mean the authorities face tough decisions. "It is a balancing act," he says. "We have to be fair - if they grit roads unnecessarily, the cost is high and it does huge damage to the environment." ——————————————————————————————————4/7—— Richard & Judy 454 T4 latest 415 NEW CARS REVIEWED p703 Legion TV today T4 PlanetP422 Teletext on 4 422 Jul18 23:14:24 SCIENCE, CULTURE AND HISTORY ——————————————————————————————— WHEN GRIDLOCK GRIPPED THE UK The winter chaos of January 2003 contributed to the Civil Contingencies Act which came into force last year. It obliges local authorities and emergency services to liaise with each other and defines the infrastructure essential to make life work in the UK. "Airports, water companies and phones are all covered in the Act," says (om Pine. "All have to co-operate and share information with the other services." ——————————————————————————————————5/7—— What's on at your local cinema? 317 NEW CARS REVIEWED p703 Legion TV today T4 PlanetP422 Teletext on 4 422 Jul18 23:12:12 SCIENCE, CULTURE AND HISTORY ——————————————————————————————— WHEN GRIDLOCK GRIPPED THE UK Changes in UK emergency management are based around greater resilience to any unforeseen circumstances. "You can't predict when bad weather will strike, but what you can do is make your institutions strong, able to resist the impact of crises and bounce back quickly," lecturer Tom Pine says. "There is noihing like the experience of the last time to keep focused," he says of winter weather chaos in 2003. ——————————————————————————————————6/7—— Sport on Channel 4 430 TV Plus 130 NEW CARS REVIEWED p703 Legion TV today T4 PlanetP422 (eletext on 4 422 Jul18 23:22:10 SCIENCE, CULTURE AND HISTORY ——————————————————————————————— WHEN GRIDLOCK GRIPPED THE UK With new systems in place, we asked (om Pine if the snow-induced standstill of January 2003 could ever be repeated. "It's not been tested yet, but all the indications are that Britain is better protected," the emergency expert says. "But if the same thing happened again, they wouldn't be able to make excuses. It would be very difficult to forgive a failure again." Gridlock has been screened ——————————————————————————————————7/7—— channel4guide@teletext.co.uk NEW CARS REVIEWED p703 Legion TV today T4 Planet