Working hard to keep public safe from flooding!
SUMMER is almost upon us and, as we hope and dream of sunny days, the teams at the Environment Agency continue to prepare for flooding – and in the North East our plans are being enhanced by the new Flood Warning Expansion Project.
One of our key roles as an organisation is to warn communities about flooding. A huge amount of effort and technology is needed to run this service, which starts with close monitoring of weather forecasts by the national Flood Forecasting Centre – a joint venture between the Environment Agency and Met office, who provide a five-day flood risk outlook.
This information is then combined with the data we gather locally from our network of rainfall, river and tidal gauges that provide real time information about the amount of water flowing through local rivers and streams, and the height of local tides.
Having this information allows our incident room to operate flood defences to better protect homes and businesses, and issue timely flood warnings to give people vital time to prepare.
There is a lot of planning and resource that goes into making the official Flood Warnings service as accurate as possible and our Hydrometry and Telemetry teams are at the forefront of this process. These teams install and maintain the equipment that gathers the river level and rainfall data that is used to generate flood warnings.
The data they harvest is used to create the models that predict how rivers will react to increased rainfall, intensity and any tidal influence.
The science and technology behind these models has continually improved over the years.
All of this means we can issue flood warnings earlier, providing residents and business owners more time to prepare and take action, based on the warning given.
There are three types:
■ Flood Alert – flooding possible, be prepared
■ Flood Warning - flooding is expected, and immediate action required
■ Severe Flood Warning - severe flooding imminent and danger to life
Flood warnings are delivered by text and phone call and are free.
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We can issue flood warnings earlier, providing residents and business owners more time to prepare and take action
In some residential areas, flooding can happen extremely quickly. This means that flooding could occur very soon after a flood warning is issued, so you may need to act fast.
We never stop working on ways to improve our flood warnings, and we continue to explore and invest in new technologies to make the service even better.
The Flood Warning Expansion Project aims to expand the Environment Agency’s current service to include all properties at high risk of flooding from rivers or sea in England.
In the North East we have nine new flood warning areas to bring online, which will expand the service to an additional 62,000 properties by the end of 2022.
The first of these communities at Barnard Castle on the River Tees started receiving flood warnings in August 2021, with Belford in North Northumberland joining soon afterwards.
If you live in these areas, you may have met our local Engagement Officers who visited the areas to encourage people to sign up. Communities in Stocksfield, Acomb, Hartlepool, Loftus, Billingham, Crook, and Darlington will follow.
You can sign up to receive your free flood warning and find information on creating a flood plan – a checklist to help you prepare for flooding – on our website on our website GOV.UK/sign-up-forflood-warnings
■ Catherine Saxon-Wilkinson is Environment Agency Area Director for the North East.