ON the face of it, today is just another day. Another Friday, like hundreds we've had before.

And yet so many of us choose to invest some sort of magical, mystical power into a day like today - the first of a new year.

Some of us will be nursing hangovers - perhaps wishing we'd refused that last round of drinks, or gone to bed an hour earlier.

Many will be bracing ourselves for a period of denial: whether that be giving up smoking, booze or crisps and cakes in a bid to be fitter and healthier in 2016.

Some of us will be looking out our gym kit, buying some new trainers and checking out the prices of a gym membership.

The new year can feel full of promise. A clean slate, pristine and perfect, inviting you to design your life in a different way.

And yet, it is really just another day. It may be a Bank Holiday, but not everyone will be having a day off.

For our emergency services, it will just be another Friday. Illness, accidents and disasters don't pay attention to special dates in the diary.

On Boxing Day, while most of us were enjoying time with our families, playing with our presents, and eating turkey sandwiches, York's already swollen rivers decided they could take no more and deluged the city.

Although river levels were not as high as the peak in 2000, the devastation was worse. The forced lifting of the Foss Barrier left the city centre defenceless. For the first time since the 1980s, streets such as Walmgate, Fossgate and Piccadilly, were under water. Foss Islands Road became a lake.

On the TV, York looked more like Venice - and some residents took to canoes to get around. While people who live near the Ouse in Skeldergate and Clementhorpe were perhaps used to leaving their homes in flood times, for many residents in the Huntington Road and Tang Hall areas, it was a first.

One resident told how she was visiting relatives in Huntington on Boxing Day when she received an emergency flood warning message from the Environment Agency. She had lived in her home in Somerset Road, near the Foss off Huntington Road, for 20 years and never been flooded. At 3am the next morning, a mountain rescue boat arrived to evacuate her family and their two dogs.

As businesses affected by the flooded Foss carry on with their clean-up, they are still in disbelief. They are complaining that they were given little or no notice of the immediate flood risk once the decision had been taken to raise the Foss Barrier and that no sandbags were issued.

There are many questions to be raised and lessons to be learned from this latest flood.

Could the problems at the Foss Barrier have been predicted and preventative steps taken before disaster struck? If not, could more have been done to warn residents and businesses about the imminent risk?

Ditto for Tadcaster bridge, which dramatically collapsed into the flood waters, effectively cutting the town in half, and forcing residents into lengthy detours for the foreseeable future.

David Cameron came to York to pledge that "money is no object" and "everything that can be done will be done" - we must see that hold true. It is not a time for empty promises.

The Queen's New Year's honours have been announced. Coincidentally, Johnny Hayes, city councillor for Micklegate, has been awarded an MBE for services to the community in Bishopthorpe Road, but Coun Hayes was just one the many flood heroes, galvanising aid efforts in South Bank as river levels rose.

There are hundreds more - from those manning the rescue boats to volunteers who filled sandbags and others who offered shelter to friends, neighbours and even strangers in their hour of need.

A list should be put together and everyone receive an honour.