Guyana has become the latest location to suffer flooding - and the RNLI was there to help. Around the world it has been a year of huge waves and violent storms. Thousands lost their lives in the Indian Ocean tsunami while, at home, hurricane-force winds and catastrophic downpours caused dramatic local damage but mercifully few deaths.

Then Guyana in South America was hit.

Perhaps surprisingly, the RNLI has been present in some form or another in all these situations.

The last issue of the Lifeboat highlighted the atrocious conditions off the north of Scotland into which five lifeboats and their crews ventured on 27 August 2004. (You can read more about the Longhope and Thurso services on page 26 of this issue.) The summer also saw frighteningly fast-moving waters at the opposite end of the country with the flash floods at Boscastle and Carrick, so vividly portrayed in the BBC's Seaside Rescue TV documentary. Here RNLI lifeboat crew and lifeguards joined the complex search and rescue operation and saved lives amongst the mud and upturned cars.

The winter was no better. In January, the River Thurso burst its banks and flooded the harbour front, including the RNLI boathouse.

Fisherman Stuart Simpson died at Teesmouth, despite an intensive search by the local lifeboat crew, when a large wave swept him out to sea. Swathes of Cumbria flooded in December and January. The RNLI lifeboat crew from Workington towed their D class overland to Carlisle to find scenes reminiscent of Lewes and Uckfield in 2000.

Adrian Carey, the Deputy Divisional Inspector for the north of England, had arrived earlier in the flooded town to assess what the RNLI could do. As leader of one of the RNLI's Rapid Response teams, he was able to bring specialist knowledge of working in flood water. The team is one of three that make up the Rapid Response Unit (RRU), whose members are ready to travel to assist in flood relief work across the globe.

Specialist work Of course the Indian Ocean tsunami was to eclipse anything experienced in north west Europe. It was for just such an occasion that the RRU was formed. Made up of volunteer crew members and full-time staff from around the UK and Republic of Ireland, the RRU was formed in the aftermath of the Institution's operation in Mozambique in 2000. That was planned and put together in just 48 hours and, though highly successful, taught the RNLI some valuable lessons: boats and equipment needed to be highly specialised (for example to stop the overheating of water-cooled engines in hot countries) as did the training of those who participated.

Hugh Fogarty, Staff Officer Operations (Fleet) explains: 'Most lifeboat crew are not aware of the hydrology of fast moving water in a channel. At sea, a wave moves through the water, but in a flood the water moves through the wave. We need to give them an awareness of the difference between manoeuvring a boat at sea and in a street that's got a metre or more of water running through it.1 RRU members like Adrian, as well as crew members based near flood-prone areas in the UK, now train to the level of Swiftwater Rescue Technician.

After Mozambique the RNLI formed a permanent RRU, which the UK Government's Department for International Development (DfID) could call on at 24 hours' notice. The RRU consists of three teams of up to 20 people, which rotate their state of readiness. One team is on 24 hour standby, the second at 14 days' readiness and the third acts as a reserve pool.

In January 2005, they were put on standby for Aceh in Indonesia, along with an RNLI hovercraft, pilots and a mechanic. Their role would have been to ferry international aid workers and medics into the devastated province, but the operation was cancelled because it proved impossible to land a large enough aircraft close to the disaster zone.

To South America But in February, the alarm was raised again, this time for Guyana. After weeks of heavy rain, and with a fragile drainage system near lethal failure, crops were ruined, farm animals starving and thousands of people homeless. At the time of writing, four groups of RRU members and their equipment have just returned from Georgetown.

As in Mozambique it was D class boats, suitably adapted, that came to the fore, with their famous agility and shallow draft, and the ability to deflate, transport and then reinflate them at will.

'The crew all had to be inshore lifeboat trained of course,' said Hugh,' but we were also looking for other specialist skills. Each team must have an HGV driver, a crane rigger or slinger, a linguist, a first aider, paramedic or doctor to tend sick or injured crew members, a forklift driver and someone with previous experience in disaster relief.

They must also have a main communicator who is good with radio and a Mr or Ms Fixit - a logistician, who is good at organising, has an orderly mind, knows where everything is stowed and where anything else can be begged or borrowed from! The rest bring their skills as lifeboat men and women and generally all-round good eggs.' All the teams have taken part in three major training exercises - one on the River Dovey in north Wales, another in the eight knot tides of the Menai Strait and one in Devon that comprised a long trek across Dartmoor, with a home made chart, to recover casualties in the Tamar Estuary.

While RRU members go about their day-today lives they undertake not to go on holiday for the period when they are on short-term standby. They must also keep up to date with inoculations.

The cost of RRU deployment is generally borne by the DflD. However, the infrastructure of the RNLI, the equipment, training, management and logistics can only be provided because of the continued generosity of the public towards the RNLI.