Residents along the river frontage in the Exe estuary
town of Topsham were full of praise for the flooding exercise that took place
on Wednesday evening, 23rd September. The exercise was aimed at raising awareness
of the risk of flooding in the town – which suffered from floods in the storms
of February 2014 – which allowed residents to test their own property defences.
The exercise also tested the readiness of Topsham’s
recently recruited Flood Wardens, 10 of whom were deployed across 5 sectors
covering the town’s 1.5 mile river frontage, from the recreation ground through
to Riversmeet. Whilst out and about, the Flood Wardens undertook an audit of
flood defences, which showed that half of the 150 properties in the flood zone
now have their own flood defences, although many of the unprotected
‘properties’ were either garages or those at a raised level. Of those with
flood defences, nearly three quarters put them out that evening, raising many
issues. Ferry Rd resident Bob Guppy found the practice putting up his flood
boards – only purchased 3 months ago – very useful. He said “I found fitting
the defences was more difficult than I first thought – however I was able to
work it out and I’m now confident in doing it in a real emergency”. Bob was not
the only one to experience problems, Roger Morton from GRK Flood Defences was
on stand-by to lend assistance to those properties with their flood boards, he
helped our more than half a dozen people during the course of the evening.
At the end of the exercise the Environment Agency and
Fire Service combined to demonstrate how to build a water-resistant sandbag
wall, and the Fire Service to the opportunity to check with residents not only
about their flood defences but also requested them to check smoke and carbon
monoxide alarms.
Richard Horne, Topsham Emergency Group Coordinator and
organiser of the exercise said “We hear a lot about of communities pulling
together in difficult times – well this was an example of a community working
together in ‘slow time’ in a non-emergency situation. We learnt an awful lot,
both for individual residents and for those coordinating the exercise. We are
now more familiar with our role in relation to the emergency services and the community
is better prepared should we experience flooding again.”
More pictures can be seen in the gallery section of this website. A video is available on You Tube, featuring interviews with a number of flood wardens and residents. Please click the link
