Flooding report builds on summer's success
Final report published
South Yorkshire’s public organisations have been widely praised for keeping people safe after last summer’s unprecedented floods. Now a new report aims to ensure any future flood would be met with an even better response for the people of South Yorkshire.
The “Final Report on the Flooding of Summer 2007” highlights how the investment in emergency planning over the last decade proved its worth in ensuring that the response was of a high standard. Tragically, two people lost their lives in the early stages of the flooding, but the number of casualties would have been much higher had the response of emergency services, and other partners, not been so well co-ordinated.
The report has been produced by South Yorkshire’s Local Resilience Forum (LRF), a high-level partnership of the area’s emergency services, local authorities, health authorities and other key partner agencies. The 13-page report praises the “prompt action by responding organisations” to keep people safe, and notes that effective recovery planning meant there has been “no large dislocation of communities to areas outside of the county - as has happened elsewhere.”
The report also looks at areas of the response which provide lessons to be learned in the event of any future flood. The ‘Gold’ command which led the partnership’s response “proved effective in managing rapidly unfolding events such as the potential collapse of the dam at Ulley Reservoir,” but several improvements to the way that command structure operated have been identified. Steps are also being taken to improve the flood warning systems to provide a quicker indication that flooding might be on its way.
Action is already under way to address 26 key recommendations, some of which provide an overlap with the recommendations of the national interim Pitt Report, which was published on 17th December 2007. The Environment Agency is already planning to install additional flood warning equipment to the north and west of Sheffield. A new, specially-designed ‘Gold’ command location is also being developed in the county.
This means that in any future flooding – or similar major emergency - South Yorkshire’s response will be informed not only by training exercises, but by improvements developed from real-life events.
Chief Constable Meredydd Hughes, chair of the South Yorkshire LRF, said: “The flooding of summer 2007 led to a tremendous response by everyone involved, which demonstrated the value of all the planning and training that has taken place for many years.
“However, no amount of foresight could have fully prepared us for such an unprecedented situation. It is right that we now reflect on the things we would do better in any future flooding events, as well as the excellent work which took place last summer.”
