Exercise Flood Board III a success!

 On the evening of Monday 20th September Topsham was treated to the sight of flood wardens on the street and many properties with their flood boards and other defences in place. But, as you can see from the photos, it was a perfect late summers evening!

The reason for all the activity was Exercise Flood Board III - the third exercise, promoted and run by Topsham’s Emergency Group. Periodically, and to ensure preparedness for a real emergency, we request that residents put up their flood defences ‘in slow time’. This allows people to practice what they might have to do for real in the middle of the night or in a ranging storm!

We were happy to be supported through the exercise by the Environment Agency and flood defence experts GRK, who were able to assist with any technical issues in erecting the flood defences.

The feedback we received both from residents and flood wards was very positive. People valued the opportunity to participate and use as a learning exercise. 

The Flood Wardens were able to monitor the number of flood boards in place and give us a good gauge as to  how well we are protected. Roughly, two thirds of the riverfront properties have flood defences - and about half of these were deployed on the evening of 20 September. Of the remaining one third - around 40 or so properties - many were what we term ’step up’ properties - ie you step up into the property rather than down, were located in relatively high areas - such as Halyards - or were garages, thus less important to protect that living accommodation.

Overall, we hope that Topsham is better prepared for the storms and high tides that are likely to be thrown at us, both this Autumn / Winter and beyond. 

On the tab 'Gallery' are some photos taken during the Exercise.

Exercise Flood Board III

Residents along the River Exe frontage, ie Ferry Rd, the Strand and Riversmeet, at least those with long-ish memories, will remember the storms of early 2014, when over 40 properties were flooded. Since then, many of those in the most vulnerable locations have invested in flood defences, usually some form of boarding, to protect vulnerable points in their property. Although we have not had a serious flood incident since 2014, there have been a number of close calls, leading the Topsham Emergency Group to believe that it is a matter of when, not if, that flooding happens again.

In in both 2015 and 2019 the Emergency Group ran an exercise to test deployment of flood defences, now in 2021 we would like to do this again. One of the objectives of the exercise will be to assess what proportion of properties vulnerable to flooding have invested in flood defences, hoping that there is an improvement in 2019’s figure of c.60%. We are always looking to increase the number of houses that need property protection so advice and guidance will be available that evening.

The date for the exercise is Monday 20th September, just in advance of a week of 4m+ high tides. If there is any threat of flooding, then residents will be encouraged to leave their defences in place. The exercise will act as a timely reminder for residents to consider their flood defence arrangements, and to allow practice to find and assemble their defences without the pressure of an actual flooding situation.

Topsham has a number of trained Flood Wardens, they will be on hand to encourage residents in this regard, giving assistance when needed. The exercise is scheduled between 5 – 7pm that evening. It will be a good test of our readiness to respond locally to an emergency flood situation.

We have made good progress with installing property level protection since 2014. We have been looking closely at the possibility of flood barriers to protect community interests at strategic locations along the Strand and Ferry Rd as a ‘front line’ of protection. Unfortunately this work has been delayed due to Covid-19, but we are continuing to work with Exeter City Council and the Environment Agency to bring this project to fruition, hopefully by the end of 2022.