WE all feel deeply for those people who have had their homes, businesses and lives ruined by the current floods. As if things were not grim enough already, the damage caused by the hurricaneforce winds on Wednesday night, with the power cuts and travel disruption on Thursday, piled on the misery, like bitter icing on a dark cake.

People have asked me: “What is special about the North-East? This is all in the South, isn’t it? So we seem to be okay. Are we better prepared? And if not, what should we do?”

I have some good news... and some bad news.

The reason all this flooding seems to be happening in the South – at the moment, anyway – is luck (or bad luck), pure and simple. The storms have been pushed across the Atlantic by strong winds high up in the atmosphere, called the jetstream.

Normally, the jetstream would lie north of Scotland at this time of year, and all the storms and rain would move there, but this year it has been well to the south and the bad weather has hit Southern England the worst.

There is nothing special about the North- East when it comes to flood risk – remember that block of flats, in Newburn, Newcastle, undermined by a torrent of floodwater in September 2012? And going further back, what about the floods that hit Hexham and Corbridge, in June 2012, or the great Durham flood in July 2009, the Morpeth floods in 2008, the floods in Darlington and Middlesbrough and Pickering in 2007, and so on.

The good news is that there are things we can do better to protect ourselves, our families, friends and local communities.

For a start, if you are at all worried and want to know whether you may be at risk from flooding, the first step is simple and quick – just go to the Environment Agency’s (EA) flood map website and type in your postcode.

You should see a map with your location in the centre, and with the rivers and watercourses marked in dark blue. The bits shaded in paler and greenish blue show where flooding can occur after very heavy or extreme rain.

If you think your home is in, or very near, one of those shaded blue shaded areas you are in a flood-risk zone and probably need to take some precautions. A word of warning, although the EA tries its best to make these maps accurate, they are not perfect. If you are in doubt, speak to your local authority and get advice on the flood risk in your area and where you live. But what of the longer term?

The next step is for the regional community to start thinking long-term about flood risk, and drought risk, and how we manage water generally, one of our most precious resources.

In particular, we have to start approaching the problem at the whole catchment scale, whether it be the Tyne, the Tees, the Ouse, the Wear or the Tweed, dealing with problems throughout a river basin in a holistic way.

The excellent scientists and engineers of the EA already do this to a great extent, but they do not, and cannot, know everything, nor can they, in these difficult economic times, afford to do everything.

WE should also bear in mind that an engineered solution to any flood problem, whether it be concrete flood walls, diversion channels, whatever, will only provide protection against a certain size of flood, in a certain place. If a bigger event happens, there will still be a flood.

The EA is starting to adapt to this realisation, and is looking for other types of flood management, for example interventions higher up each river system to slow the flow of water from its source, in the uplands, to the sea.

In this respect, different “semi-natural” intervention measures, such as the pond storage walls at Belford, the hedges and tree strips planted at Pontbren, in Wales, or the large woody debris dams, floodplain woodland and small woody bunds upstream of Pickering and Sinnington, in North Yorkshire, are all starting to prove their worth and are arousing interest among specialists, local communities and residents.

However, trying out all of these things, throughout a catchment, so that we get the best and most sustainable combination of hard engineered and semi-natural flood management, is very difficult to do, and even more difficult to do well.

It takes time, hard work and a lot of commitment from everyone, including the EA and local residents and groups working together.

When working this way, it is especially important to make sure that flood defence measures in one place do not make the flooding problem worse for other people downstream.

Also, we must beware of reaching for quick solutions.

There are no quick solutions if we want to do this properly, for the benefit of all our people, whatever their background, politics or occupation, and wherever they live in our beautiful region.

This is a problem that needs a long-term effort, which also needs the support and commitment of all political parties, so we get the type of flood risk management we want and can live with, and a system that is properly adapted to the changing landscape and climate we will face in the coming years.