Emergency Management - Autumn 2007

The outcome: heavy rain from mid-June to the end of July.  The Met office issued numerous National Severe Weather Warning Service warnings for heavy rain and the Environment Agency issued Flood Watches and Warnings. For more information on these warnings please see the EA website on www.environment-agency.gov.uk.

Record rainfall brought extensive flooding to an area from the Severn Valley and the Cotswolds across the West Midlands through Yorkshire to the North East.  Prolonged and heavy rainfall soon overwhelms defences and the speed at which floods arise can make a powerful and destructive force.

The focus in Yorkshire has been on the numbers of people flooded and their homes, temporary accommodation, the threat to City and Town centres, infrastructure, business and shopping complexes.  Issues included the Ulley reservoir dam, the closure of the MI and the utility companies supply and networks.  And after the flood - the task of restoration and return to ‘nomality’.

The catastrophic flooding in Gloucestershire and Warwickshire caused millions of pounds worth of damage and displaced thousands of people.

Widespread power outages lasting for several days and disrupting water supplies for up to two weeks required the emergency provision of water for basic hygiene requirements and bottled water for drinking.

Floods to the North, West, and South - So was Leicestershire just plain lucky?

For flood watch purposes, Leicestershire has eleven rivers across the County (try and name them, answers in Rivers in Leicestershire near the end of this article!), but none are of the scale of the Severn.

The situation in Leicestershire was monitored very closely by County and District Council employees, notably the Emergency Management Team and the Highways, Transport and Waste Management Department, throughout the period. Of the 11 rivers, at the height of the situation, 8 were on ‘Flood Watch’, 3 were on ‘Flood Warning’ but none went to Severe Flood.

Had Leicestershire’s rivers been unable to cope, severe flooding across the County could have been experienced. However, both the County and District Councils have long established and well practised plans in place to cope with displaced people at any of a series of premises across the County that have been identified as being suitable for use as emergency centres. These plans would have been implemented within hours had the situation required people to be evacuated from their homes.

Leicestershire County Council, as a member of the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Local Resilience Forum (LRF) has a generic Flood Plan in place. However, some of the local detail, to include District and parish flood planning and response arrangements are yet to be finalised. Accordingly, the LRF has established a ‘task and finish’ Flood Planning Group to review the existing generic flood plan and to complete the detailed planning. This ‘fine tuning’ of the existing flood plan may include extending the utilisation of parish based ‘wardens’ across the whole of Leicestershire.

To focus on one area of the County, Bottesford, 170.7 millimetres of rain had fallen on Bottesford in June, the second highest to the flood of 18 July 2001.  After a wet start to June, the weekend of 23^rd June brought significant threats of flooding to the area such that Melton Borough Council deployed significant numbers of sandbags and began to consider the need for rest centres.  At that time there was flooding in the Trent valley around Lowdham (Notts) – similar latitude to Bottesford.  The Met Office began to forecast a 70% chance in the East Midlands of 15 to 20 mm of rain with up to 40mm locally.  Through the weekend the forecast rose to 50mm+ with possibilities of 100mm locally.  The band, fortunately for Bottesford residents, passed further North and only a further 15mm fell on Bottesford.

The Principal Warden commenting on the June rainfall figures stated that “July is usually the wettest month in the area”.  After a short respite the rains came again and on 21^st July peak levels of rainfall were achieved again. However, the flood threat was not so severe.  The task is now to learn lessons and see what can be realistically achieved.  The Principal Warden had gained from the experience of being involved in the major flood exercise ‘Water Rat’* in 2005 and been able to apply that knowledge.

*Exercise Water Rat was organised for the Environment Agency by JBA Consulting and with the support of LCC Emergency Management and other agencies.  

Leicestershire is not in the valley of any major river and only marginal to the flood plain of the Trent.  Its surrounding topography is not mountainous. The River Soar Catchment is generally within the boundaries of Leicestershire and comprises the Rivers Soar, Sence and Wreake together with Rothley Brook. The main confluences are to the North of Leicester and then flowing Northward by Loughborough and Kegworth to the River Trent.  The peripheral rivers flowing out of County are the Devon, the Welland (including tributaries), Avon, Anker & Sence (a second one), Mease and the Trent.

Luck in the weather and fortuity in location are of significant benefit, but 100m (4”) of rain can still fall on Leicestershire, as it did in 2001 and 2002 and was threatening again in 2007.  It is that scale for which we must be prepared.

Flood alerts are issued to Local Authorities and other interested stakeholders by fax, e-mail and phone.

"You can find out if you are at risk of flooding and get advice on how to prepare for a flood at , and sign up to this free service by going to the EA website at www.environment-agency.gov.uk, or ring the Floodline number on 0845 988 1188."

Severe floods devastated large swathes of the north of England resulting in the loss of life and significant damage and destruction to property, land and employment.

In its role as auxiliary to the statutory services in times of disaster, three of the five BRC Northern Territory Areas were actively involved in supporting the local authorities through the provision of volunteers and implementing a range of services in the rest centres where those affected by the floods were temporarily residing.

In Lincolnshire a block of flats in Lincoln centre was evacuated for 9 days and residents were housed in a rest centre supported by the Red Cross. 51 staff and volunteers helped over the 9 days giving support to individuals and the community. The BRC Fire and Emergency Support Service (FESS) vehicle went from one call to another resulting in 49 call-outs over 2 days providing direction support to 185 clients and handling 401 homes, giving practical information and signposting. At the same time the FESS team were also there to provide some form of assistance either the welcome sit down or cuppa to 360+ rescue service and other agency personnel.

Whilst all this was happening, additional BRC volunteers from our area were giving cross border support to Doncaster BRC to assist with the night cover of  two of the 4 rest centres being staffed by BRC personnel .

Following on from this Louth and Horncastle required Rest Centre management and Brackley sighed with relief when their reservoir failed to burst it banks.  BRC United Kingdom Office were now in full flow supporting Gloucester and our teams from as far a field as Scotland, Sheffield, Cleethorpes and Leicester deployed vehicles and crew for 5 day shifts.

As Senior Services Manager for Lincolnshire, Leicestershire and Rutland and Northamptonshire, I am reminded that this is what BRC is all about, what we train for and what we engage with our partners to achieve. You must agree under these unprecedented circumstances our volunteers are to be applauded and throughout this period local service delivery continued.

Recent events such as Buncefield and major summer floods have highlighted the need for effective business continuity planning, testing and exercising.  The Civil Contingencies Act places a duty on all local authorities to have effective and robust plans in place, however, business continuity activities are often overlooked or given lower priority than the day to day activities of staff.  Business continuity should be a proactive activity and not reactive.

JBA Consulting specialises in flood risk management and has a dedicated Emergency Planning and Business Continuity Team.  JBA Consulting is vastly experienced in emergency planning, exercising and business continuity for Cat 1 and Cat 2 responders over the past 10 years.

For an informal chat about how JBA can help develop, test and exercise your business continuity plans and for advice on how to unlock your funding potential for these business critical activities, contact Laura Crofts or David Hoppe from our dedicated team.

Tel: 01827 722710

Email: JBA-BCM@jbaconsulting.co.uk

De Boer’s history goes back over 80 years and is currently the biggest and most capable space provider in terms of the breadth of business continuity requirements. Partly through strategic design and partly through a combination of circumstances, the market for temporary infrastructure and associated services has changed significantly and particularly for projects with a combination of demanding criteria e.g. fast response, difficult build site, high-quality of installation and maximum efficiency of use. In this respect De Boer provided their services following the Tsunami in 2005 at Fulham, the 7/7 bombings in London, hurricane damage in New Orleans, flooding at Ikea and fire at the Aulds foodplant in Glasgow.

The Aulds Foodplant facility in Glasgow was destroyed by a massive fire. The blaze destroyed their original premises, which provided products to a range of food service companies and high-profile supermarket groups such as Tesco and Sainsbury’s. Auld’s had no route to follow to provide them with a solution to save their business.  The business was under threat.

                                               

De Boer was called on to provide emergency facilities for a temporary building including offices, cold storage areas, laboratory and a test kitchen. As a permanent replacement for the destroyed food factory would take over 18 months to build. The time pressures were immense and De Boer were tasked with having the accommodation in operation within five weeks, in order to save Auld’s business.

De Boer needed to respond quickly and hit the ground running despite horrendous weather conditions of 100km-per-hour winds and heavy rain. With as many as 70 workers on site each day, the site was quickly cleared and De Boer created temporary facilities on grassland at the back of the burnt out factory.

As well as offices, storage areas, laboratory and kitchen, De Boer also provided a clean kitchen production area, goods-in and goods-out facilities, changing rooms, space for blast freezers, a grill room and toilets. The total floor space covered 2250 square metres, with special cladding needing to be created because of the specific hygiene and temperature requirements associated with food production.

De Boer’s dedicated project manager Jackie Gregson Brown helped motivate staff and showed great innovation in order to get the job completed to schedule, coping with a developing requirement, and also to high quality standards relating to food production.

The construction of the temporary building enabled more than 200 staff to return to work after just taking five weeks to plan and build the temporary accommodation.

By meeting the tight deadline De Boer saved Auld’s bakery business, and prevented significant job losses in an area heavily reliant on Aulds as an employer.

De Boer structures - 01280 846500

Jackie Gregson Brown - 078 10551081 - jackie.gregson-brown@deboer.com

Mical de Boer - 07876 233463 - Mical.deboer@deboer.com