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Flooding

Answer

Responsibility for flood warning arrangements rests with the Environment Agency.I understand that on Friday 17 June 2005, Met Office forecasts to the Environment Agency indicated the likelihood of thunderstorms across North East Region over the weekend. However, due to the nature of the weather system, the Met Office were unable, even by Sunday lunchtime, to be more specific than to warn that most of the region was at continued risk of thunderstorms from the afternoon into the evening, and they had particular concern about the Pennines.Three Flash Warnings of heavy rain were issued to the Environment Agency on Sunday 19 June at 13:57, 18:22 and 20:41 BST, but all the information related to ““scattered heavy thunderstorms””, ““localised torrential downpours”” and ““localised flooding”” with no direct time or location given to them.The Environment Agency was alerted to the onset of property flooding at Thirsk and surrounding areas between 17:30 and 18:00 on 19 June;. While I understand that flooding at this stage was confined to surface water runoff, the Environment Agency nevertheless deployed operational staff to the area to report back on the situation.At 20:00 on 19 June, alarm levels were received from the Environment Agency's instrumentation on Cod Beck upstream of Thirsk and consequently the Flood Watch for the area was issued at 20:10.By 21:30, Environment Agency patrol staff on site reported a rapid rise of water levels in Cod Beck and the decision was therefore taken to issue the Flood Warning for Thirsk. The warning for flooding from Cod Beck itself was issued at 21:38 to 184 recipients. By this time there had been some flooding to property as a result of surface water and drainage problems but not from Cod Beck.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

9472; 436 c417-8W

Session

2005-06

Subjects

Floods North Yorkshire