Flood warning failed 200
Sep 19 2008 by Dave Black, The Journal
ALMOST 200 households in a town devastated by flooding were failed by an early-warning system. The Environment Agency admits an error led to more than 25% of the 721 households in Morpeth registered with its Floodline Warning Direct service not being contacted when the River Wansbeck burst its banks on September 6.
It did alert more than 520 registered households, but those missed out say they could have salvaged more possessions if the free service had worked.
Yesterday – despite the error in its emergency incident room – the agency urged more families to sign up.
At present, just over half of the 10,000 households in the Northumbria region eligible to register for Floodline have done so. Nationally the figure is about 30%, while in Morpeth 61% of 1,189 properties are registered. But in some areas, fewer than a quarter of homes have signed up – in Newcastle, Gateshead and North and South Tyneside only 23% are on the system.
In Sunderland and Durham 38% have registered, while in Middlesbrough and Stockton the figure is 41%.
Anyone in a flood risk zone can register for the 24-hour service, which sends an automatic message to landline and mobile phones, or by email or fax, when flooding is imminent and tells people the action to take to protect their home or business. On the day of the Morpeth floods, the system missed out 198 registered households.
One who failed to receive a warning was Laurie Fogerty, 57, of Queen Street in Middle Greens, whose home was flooded to a depth of four feet. He said: "We have been registered with Floodline for some time, but got no warning on September 6. I was on the phone about five times to the council, but no one seemed to have clue what was going on.
"It’s a shame that people didn’t get a warning because if we had, I think we could have got more stuff upstairs. The system seems to be a waste of time, because what is the point of registering if they don’t get in touch with you?"
Yesterday the agency’s area flood risk manager Ian Hodge said work was being carried out to discover whether what happened in Morpeth was a technical or human error.
He said: "We are hugely sympathetic to all residents and businesses who have been hit by this devastating flood and we apologise for any additional inconvenience that may have been caused through not receiving our warning.
"We continually review our flood warning service to improve it and make it more reliable and will do so again following this incident to prevent a recurrence. We encourage those who haven’t already done so to call our free Floodline service on 0845 988118 to sign up."
Click the links below to read previous stories about the floods
