Residents evacuated amid flood warnings
SEVERE flood warnings remain in place after hundreds of residents were told to leave their homes overnight because of adverse weather caused by Storm Christoph.
Homes were flooded after heavy rainfall and snow showers in Cheshire, with roads disrupted and residents in the county warned that river levels were still rising yesterday.
Residents were evacuated overnight in the Didsbury and Northenden areas of Greater Manchester, with the Government preparing for further impacts from unsettled weather.
On a visit to Didsbury, where around 2,000 homes were advised to evacuate, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the Environment Agency had used sluice gates and “improvised emergency flood defences”, but added: “There will be more to come.
“There will be further rain next week, so it is vital that people who are in potentially affected areas follow the advice and get the Environment Agency flood alerts where they can.”
Over 170 flood warnings remained in place across England at midday yesterday, with three “severe” warnings – meaning danger to life – issued for parts of the North West.
A severe flood warning was issued for the English River Dee at Farndon in Cheshire, where water levels were expected to peak yesterday afternoon, according to the Environment Agency.
It said that the “flooding of property is imminent” and that staff were closely monitoring weather forecasts and river levels.
Police in Cheshire said a number of residents had been evacuated in Warrington, Northwich, Chester, Ellesmere Port and Tattenhall.
Cheshire Fire and Rescue said yesterday morning it was in the process of rescuing 21 people by boat from Lea Court nursing home in the town of Warrington.
In Northwich, roads into the town centre were closed and pedestrians were being asked to avoid the area due to footpaths being “under numerous inches of water”, police said on Twitter.
Another tweet by Northwich Police said that a number of agencies were involved in the evacuation of Weaver Court retirement village.
Gabrielle Burns-Smith, 44, whose home in Lymm flooded, said by 4pm on Wednesday water was knee-deep. “We were seriously worrying that the house was going to be breached. Then it was... we’re still in the house, we can’t go anywhere because we can’t get the car out.”
In the early hours of yesterday morning, North Wales Police began evacuating residents from homes in Bangor-on-Dee, after a severe flood warning was issued for the village by Natural Resources Wales. A “large number” of properties in Neath were also evacuated due to flooding, according to South Wales Police.
The same force said that the body of a man had been recovered from the River Taff, near Blackweir in Cardiff, with the death being treated as unexplained.
Elsewhere in Wales, emergency teams were called out to protect supplies of the Oxford University/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, after flooding at Wrexham Industrial Estate.
Three yellow weather warnings were issued by the Met Office, including an ice warning in place until 10am tomorrow covering western Scotland, North West England, Northern Ireland and much of Wales.