ON Friday nearly two weeks ago I got off the train at Didcot Parkway to find the station flooded with rainwater from the previous night's storm. The rain water was in some places three and a half feet deep, and to make matters worse it was contaminated with sewage. This meant that not only did the water have to be removed, the station had to be disinfected afterwards.

When I arrived, Oxfordshire fire service – a crew from Banbury – were already on site with pumps set up to remove the surface water; the police had set up roadblocks in places like Sutton Courtenay where the roads had flooded; other Government agencies had also reacted in a timely manner, with the Environment Agency sending pumps to Didcot Parkway Station to assist with the removal of the water. The station manager and his team from First Great Western were also on hand to run the clear up operation and ensure replacement buses were available as the London platform had had to be closed.

All in all, I was very impressed with the rapid response and the hard work that the emergency services and other agencies were undertaking in some very challenging circumstances.

Over the past six months I had seen the same professionalism and commitment to serving the public from our emergency services in the immediate aftermath of the Didcot Power Station tragedy, and throughout the recovery period. The Saturday following the flooding I attended the commemoration service for the four men who had died in the Didcot collapse. Representatives from the police, fire brigade and Health and Safety Executive were in attendance to pay their respects to the men who had died.

Representatives from Dalton Barracks also attended the commemoration, as military aid had been deployed to assist in clearing hazards so that the remaining structure could be taken down safely. It is easy to forget the military’s role as an emergency service, but their support has been vital during the recovery effort at Didcot and they reacted swiftly when the flooding happened last week.

It’s easy for us to moan when things go wrong: we complain about the wrong kind of leaves on the line; we're amazed when a little snow stops the transport system working; we wonder if enough is being done to stop flooding. But I think we should all remember that accidents and natural events will always occur, sometimes with tragic consequences. And when they do, we are blessed in this country with emergency services that are staffed by people who are well-trained and very dedicated to what they do.