Week of wild weather
DERBYSHIRE Dales District Council’s neighbourhoods staff headed out to floodaffected areas on Friday to check on the welfare of locals.
The Covid-secure visits included calls to residents in Hartington, which was hit by overnight flooding following Storm Christoph, as well as Rowsley and parts of Bakewell.
The team, who were wearing masks and were told to only enter a property in an emergency situation, focused on residents who called the council’s emergency floodline number.
In just 24 hours council response teams, who worked through the night, distributed 2,100 sandbags to at-risk properties and emergency sandbag hubs were set up in hotspot areas across the Derbyshire Dales.
Around 52 tonnes of sand was used. The response team had also been out in the district on Thursday, patrolling flood-hit areas with sandbags on their trucks and checking river levels.
Council chief executive Paul
I am immensely proud of the way our staff responded to this emergency.
Wilson said: “It’s been a phenomenal team effort.
“I am immensely proud of the way our staff responded to this emergency not only our amazing frontline staff who literally protected lives last night, but so many other support staff who made the operation work.
“My thanks also go to partner agencies - particularly Derbyshire County Council and Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service - who joined with us to tackle an extremely serious situation in Bakewell’s Wye Bank.
“Evacuation of properties was a distinct possibility at one stage and without their help we could have been looking at a very different situation this morning.
“I must also mention the district councillors in Bakewell, who, as community representatives, were absolutely fantastic, helping at the scene late last night.”
Council boss Paul Wilson