Flood victims: Why some got no warning
A total of 198 households that were signed up to Floodline Warning Direct were missed out of the loop, with Middle Greens bearing the brunt.
And officials say that when the flood hit, they were too swamped to go to the area as their efforts were focused elsewhere.
Queen Street resident Deborah Bolton said: "We never saw anybody official and we never got any warning.
"I did register with Floodline, but never got a phone call.
"There were local lads in the back street who were helping people out and they were absolutely fantastic, but we had nobody official doing anything."
Neighbour Laurence Fogerty said he felt the area was forgotten.
"I don't know why people in the Stanners seemed to be the priority. We didn't get any warnings or any help. It's like Middle Greens is not as important," he said.
"The river was bursting at the seams down here and I phoned up five times that day to try to get help. They just said Middle Greens was not the priority.
That is what annoys me.”
Environment Agency Flood Risk and Operations Manager Ian Hodge said of
the 721 households in the town registered with Floodline, 523 did receive a
call.
However, he admitted an error in the system meant residents in Middle Greens
were not told of the risk.
“We have got five areas for severe flood warnings in the town centre itself
and we would issue them based on a certain set of criteria,” he said.
“In this event, the water levels were fairly critical and we intended to
issue all five severe flood warnings.
“In our incident room we fully intended to issue all five, but unfortunately
there was an error made and only four were issued.
“We are still doing work to find out whether it was a technical error or a
human error.
“We did manage to reach about 520 people affected by the flood,
unfortunately an error meant that the people in Middle Greens that were
registered on the system didn’t receive a flood warning.
“We are hugely sympathetic to everybody in Morpeth who was flooded, whether
they were registered with the system or not.
“I would like to give a reassurance that we are working closely to make sure
that our system is as robust as possible.”
Mr Hodge said the extreme nature of the flood meant that workers were unable
to evacuate all parts of the town and worked to a priority list.
“The first area to be at risk would have been High Stanners, then Oldgate
and then the town centre,” he said.
“I think the reality was that resources from all agencies were particularly
stretched.
“Middle Greens was the last area to be evacuated in an extreme flood because
the defences are a bit higher.
“The evacuation of the town started at lunchtime and continued through the
day in priority order.
“As the flood developed it became quite extreme to the extent that everyone
was completely overwhelmed and the town was cut in two at that stage.”
Despite the problems, Mr Hodge urged people not to give up on the system.
Currently 39 percent of Morpeth residents whose homes are at risk have not
signed up to Floodline and while the Agency is looking into setting up an
‘opt-out’ arrangement, householders are advised to take action now.
“Clearly there might be concern that one of the warnings didn’t go out, but
I wouldn’t want that to deter people from signing up to the service,” said
Mr Hodge.
To register for Floodline telephone 0845 988 1188.
Castle Morpeth Council has commissioned an independent review of the flood
operation
The full article contains 238 words and appears in Morpeth Herald newspaper.
