Two disasters, two different measures

Your specification makes you learn two weather case studies, and the rules for choosing them look fussy. One from flash flooding or tropical storms. One from a heat wave or a drought. One in the UK and one outside it. All at once. The two you need are the Boscastle flood of 2004 in Cornwall, and the European heatwave of 2003 in France. ⚠️ NOW NOTICE SOMETHING ABOUT THAT PAIR THAT MOST REVISION MISSES. BOTH OF THESE HAPPENED IN WEALTHY WESTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES. You may have met hazard comparisons before where the point was that a richer country copes better than a poorer one. ⚠️ THAT COMPARISON IS NOT AVAILABLE HERE. MONEY IS THE ONE THING THESE TWO PLACES HAVE IN COMMON, so whatever the contrast is about, it is not about that. Here is what it is about, and it is the idea this whole module runs on. At Boscastle, water came down a steep valley and wrecked a village. Buildings were damaged, cars were carried into the harbour, and the place was, for a while, unrecognisable. ⭐ NOBODY DIED. In France, the summer of 2003 was very hot for a long time. No building fell down. No street was swept away. Photographs of the event show nothing much at all. ⭐ AROUND FIFTEEN THOUSAND MORE PEOPLE DIED THAN WOULD NORMALLY HAVE DONE. ⚠️ SO THESE TWO HAZARDS DID THEIR HARM IN COMPLETELY DIFFERENT CURRENCIES. ONE DESTROYED PLACES. THE OTHER DESTROYED NOTHING AND COST AN ENORMOUS NUMBER OF LIVES. ⭐ DAMAGE AND DEATH ARE NOT THE SAME MEASURE, AND YOU CANNOT READ HOW SERIOUS A HAZARD IS OFF HOW DRAMATIC IT LOOKS. Hold that, because it explains almost everything else on this topic, including why the two places responded in such completely different ways afterwards.

The two case studies

Read the rows across rather than down. The third row is where the contrast lives.

Tap what the pair actually shows

Tap the TWO statements that both case studies together support.

How much a hazard destroys is a poor guide to how many people it kills
What is done during and after an event can change its consequences a great deal
The contrast between these two events is explained by one country being richer than the other
The more dramatic an event looks in photographs, the more serious it has been

The hazard that broke nothing

The 2003 heatwave damaged almost no property in France, yet its death toll was far higher than that of most disasters. Which explanation fits the evidence best?

Its harm fell on people rather than on buildings, and it met a population that was vulnerable for social reasons: many elderly people living alone, in the month when families and services were away
The temperatures were higher than anywhere on Earth had ever recorded
France lacked the resources to respond effectively
No forecast predicted that the weather would be hot

Five words the mark scheme wants

Five terms, each defined by what it is. Neither case study is mentioned here.

Match each feature of a place to the risk it created

A small, steep, narrow valley above the village
Two rivers meeting at the point where people live
A low bridge across the river in the middle of the village
A national holiday month when families and many staff are away
Night-time temperatures that stayed high for days on end

Rain reached the river quickly and with force, leaving almost no warning time
Two lots of water arrived in the same place at the same moment
Debris jammed against it and held water back until it gave way
People most at risk were less likely to be checked on, and services were thinly staffed
Bodies had no chance to cool down overnight, so the strain went on without a break

Two that the contrast establishes

Select the TWO statements that this pair of case studies supports.

A response has to fit the kind of hazard, which is why one place needed engineering and the other needed a warning plan
A hazard that arrives slowly and breaks nothing can still be more deadly than one that arrives in minutes and destroys a village
The difference in outcomes between the two events is explained by the difference in national wealth
Because nobody died at Boscastle, the flood was not a serious hazard event

How to write a comparison that scores

The examiner is not asking for two case studies written out one after the other. They are asking you to hold them against each other, and there is a shape that does that and a shape that only looks as though it does. ⚠️ COMPARE LIKE WITH LIKE. Causes against causes, consequences against consequences, responses against responses. A paragraph that compares one event's causes with the other event's responses has not compared anything, because the two things were never the same kind of thing. ⚠️ AND USE A COMPARING WORD IN EVERY POINT: WHEREAS, BY CONTRAST, BOTH, UNLIKE. If you can delete one of the two events from your sentence and it still reads perfectly, you have written about one event and mentioned the other. ⭐ NOW THE THING THAT SEPARATES A STRONG ANSWER ON THIS PARTICULAR PAIR: DO NOT LET "WORSE" MEAN "MORE DESTROYED". If you rank these two events by how much damage they did, you will get the answer exactly backwards, and an examiner will see that you have measured the wrong thing. Say which measure you are using, and say it out loud. "In terms of damage to property... but in terms of loss of life..." is a sentence that cannot be misread, and it is doing analysis rather than description. Two smaller habits worth having. ⚠️ PLACE-SPECIFIC DETAIL DOES NOT HAVE TO BE A NUMBER. Naming the two rivers that meet in the village, or the month of the year in France, is exactly the kind of specific that earns credit, and it is far easier to remember accurately than a statistic you half recall. ⚠️ A FIGURE YOU ARE NOT SURE OF IS WORSE THAN NO FIGURE AT ALL. ⚠️ AND WRITE ABOUT THE DEATHS PLAINLY. This is a real event in which a great many people died. State it accurately, use it as evidence, and do not dress it up.

The afternoon nobody died

The Boscastle flood is worth slowing down over, because the most interesting thing about it is something that did not happen. The physical story is quickly told. Storms had been sitting over the high ground inland, the soil was already saturated after a wet August, and the water had nowhere to go but down. The valley above the village is small and steep, so it did not take long to arrive, and the two rivers meeting in the village brought it to the same place at the same time. Then the debris did what debris does. Cars, trees and wreckage were carried down and jammed against the bridge, which held the water back and then let it go. ⚠️ BY ANY MEASURE OF DAMAGE THIS WAS A SEVERE EVENT. THE LOWER VILLAGE WAS WRECKED. And nobody was killed. ⭐ THAT IS NOT LUCK, AND IT IS THE PART OF THE CASE STUDY WORTH KNOWING PROPERLY. While the flood was still happening, helicopters were working above the village, lifting people from rooftops and upper windows in one of the largest rescue operations of its kind carried out in Britain in peacetime. ⚠️ SO THE RESPONSE DID NOT MERELY FOLLOW THE CONSEQUENCES. IT CHANGED THEM. The specification asks you for causes, consequences and responses as though they were three separate lists. Boscastle shows they are not: what was done during the event is the reason one of those lists is empty. Afterwards came the other kind of response. The river channel through the village was widened and deepened so it could carry more water, and the low bridge that had trapped the debris was replaced. ⚠️ NOTICE THAT BOTH RESPONSES ARE PHYSICAL, BECAUSE THE HAZARD WAS PHYSICAL. In France, where the harm fell on people and not on structures, nothing could be widened or rebuilt, and the response had to be a system for finding people who were at risk before the heat reached them.

Order the Cornwall event from cause to rebuild

Put the stages in order, from the conditions before the flood to the work done afterwards.

A wet August leaves the soil on the high ground unable to absorb any more water
Slow-moving storms sit over that high ground and rain heavily
Water runs off the steep valley quickly and two rivers deliver it to the village together
Debris jams against the bridge, holding water back before it gives way
Helicopters lift people from rooftops and upper windows while the flood is still running
The channel is later widened and deepened, and the low bridge is replaced

Assemble a sentence that really compares

Build a comparison of the two events that names the measure it is using.

The two case studies run

Five questions on causes, consequences and responses across the pair. Three lives.

Complete the hazard contrast facts

A flood that rises very soon after the rain that caused it is a _____. A period of unusually high temperature lasting several days or longer is a _____. How exposed to harm a particular group of people is when a hazard reaches them is their _____. The number of deaths above what would normally be expected over the same period is called _____.

flash flood heat wave vulnerability excess deaths a drainage basin a drought runoff a response

Three answers to sharpen

Three pieces of student writing on this pair. In each case the mark is in the reasoning, not the verdict.

An answer reads: "The Boscastle flood was worse than the French heatwave because it destroyed a whole village." How would you improve it?
A student explains the difference between the two outcomes by saying that France had fewer resources to cope. What is wrong with that?
An answer describes the Cornwall event fully in one paragraph, then the French event fully in the next. Both are accurate and detailed. Why will it not reach the top band?

Compare the two events properly

Compare the Boscastle flood of 2004 with the 2003 European heatwave in France, using causes, consequences and responses.

Compare the causes of the two events, holding them against each other rather than describing each in turn
Compare the consequences, naming clearly which measure you are using at each point
Explain why the event that destroyed the most was not the event that cost the most lives
Explain why one place was vulnerable because of its physical geography and the other because of who the heat reached
Compare the responses, and explain why one place needed engineering while the other needed a warning system
Finish by explaining what this pair shows about judging how serious a hazard has been

Weather Hazard Contrast

Use it, the way the marks are given

What you'll cover