South Woodham Ferrers Floodwatch

Background

In 2005 in South Woodham Ferrers, South Woodham Ferrers Yacht Club & Eyott Sailing Club in partnership with Chelmsford Borough Council (CBC), Emergency Planning Section established the SWF Flood Watch.  The scheme has been set-up to offer a local voluntary resource to Chelmsford Borough Council and the Essex Fire and Rescue Service should a tidal flood situation arise in SWF. The Team is co-ordinated by myself.

South Woodham Ferrers is an Essex Town developed in the late 1970s with the centre of town and some houses  below sea level, but protected from the River Crouch by 6.5 m high seawalls (measurements taken above chart datum), and the Town Centre by 7m "bunds".  Our role was developed in conjunction with the SWF Community Safety Forum partners.

The scheme is activated by Chelmsford Borough Council’s Emergency Planning Unit and provides a River Crouch monitoring service under flood warning conditions. The tidal data the group supply, is fed back to the CBC Emergency Control Room to enable an accurate assessment to be made between ‘predicted’ and ‘actual’ conditions, and assessment of the probability over flooding  for the appropriate local public warnings to be given.

Initially we have installed tidal gauge markers( reading from Chart Datum)  on the river, assess the probability of overtopping by use of critical marks  and provide the personnel to monitor the tide levels on the River Crouch & Fenn Creek. then relay the information to the CBC Emergency Planning Officer.  In 2007 one of our team leaders created a computer program specifically for South Woodham Ferrers which uses existing modelling to accurately predict if an over topping of the sea walls is going to occur given the tidal data at the time.

Tide gauge at SWFYC 

Our group have also made our services and dinghies available as an additional local voluntary resource under the Flood Watch umbrella to assist and support the Essex Fire and Rescue Service in any flood situation that may affect SWF. The group offers 18 volunteers, together with their own boats,  immediately available locally to be deployed under the control of a fire officer. It is assumed that if SWF is affected by tidal flooding, then so will all the low lying coastline, which will stretch emergency resources and the ability to respond to local situations. Examination of detailed street maps and the Environment Agency indicative flood plain maps reveals that if overtopping occurs there is likely to be two general ‘ponding’ areas in the town. The SWF Fire Station drill yard is on the border of one of these particular areas and will be the main nominated rendezvous point to locate unsinkable dinghies/ inflatable boats for about 1 hour before high water until the flood risk is over. The dinghies would be launched from the drill yard and another rendezvous point at Champions Manor Hall immediately after a flood, should they be needed.

SWFYC Rescue boat with some Floodwatch Team

There is obviously concern about any vulnerable people living in bungalows or at ground floor levels in the affected flooded areas. To address this problem we are  working in partnership with Chelmsford Borough Council, the Town Council and South Woodham Ferrers Community Safety Forum  to raise flood awareness in South Woodham Ferrers and give practical advice to hopefully reduce the need to carry out waterborne rescues, but should the need arise the Flood Watch Team will provide their own boats to assist where it is considered necessary under the direction of Essex Fire and Rescue Service (EFRS). In 2008 the Floodwatch team identified the bungalows in the EA flood risk area and passed this information to the Emergency Planning Officer

The volunteers are all competent boat handlers, who possess proven seamanship skills and ability to use their own boats, which have reserve buoyancy, safely. The assessment is that the boats would be operated immediately after a flood, in relatively still seawater, which the volunteers operate in on a regular basis.
This is a new and developing community partnership scheme involving Chelmsford Borough Council Emergency Planning Unit, the Essex Fire and Rescue Service and the SWF Community Safety Forum partnership, to provide an effective voluntary resource, which would be used to assist local residents and support the local authority in a flood situation if the need arises.

Some Floodwatch team and D.O. Matt Hughes EFRS  after an Exercise

Callouts and exercises

9/10/2006        Exercise with CBC
20/2/07            Exercise with CBC and Town council
18/3/07            11:30pm Flood Warning call out
20/11/2007       Exercise with Town Council, CBC and EFRS
08/11/2007       11pm Flood Warning call out
09/11/2007       10 am Flood Warning by EA, surge peaked early
10/2/2009         10:30 am Call out on Flood Alert as the tide was exceptionally (6m)     high
10/9/2010         Exercise
18/9/2010         Exercise with Town Council, CBC, First Responders and EFRS


29 August 2011
A Flood Alert was issued by the Environment Agency at 13:11 today(29 August) for the rivers Crouch and Roach, alerting  for the high water tomorrow morning at 02:17a.m. (Tuesday).

An E-mail was sent to all Floodwatch volunteers informing them of the situation, although we don't respond to alerts, this is one step away from the Flood Warning when we do respond, so we can use this as a  reminder for us to dust off our procedures, seek out our gear and get it ready in case we are called out if the warning is upgraded.

Friday 25 November

A Flood Alert was issued by the Environment Agency  today, for High Tide on Saturday 26 at 00:48 (Hullbridge). An Email was sent out to Floodwatch members to inform them. No further action taken, no flood warning issued. Not surprising really as the strong Westerly winds would tend to hold the tide back.

Sunday 27 November

Another Flood Alert issued by the Environment Agency in the afternoon for High Water on Monday 29 November at 02:18.  As I was a guest at the Eyott Sailing Club dinner so I chose to inform the most of the Floodwatch volunteers at the dinner, as most of them were there -  together with a number of the local Coastguard volunteers. There was a degree of merriment at the event deciding who would remain teetotal, in case the alert was upgraded. In the event the records show that although there was a large surge, this came through to Hullbridge earlier than the (normal) high tide and so was going out as the tide peaked.  An Email from the Emergency Planning Officer later on  said he had 13 Flood Alerts in his region!

Wednesday 27 December 2011

Early this morning I was woken up to be informed there is a Flood Alert issued for the Crouch today.

The EA are predicting almost a metre surge on the 15:15 High Water of 5:24metre height ( HW Hullbridge), which although not a Flood Warning ( to which we turn out)  should be interesting as the sea walls are 6.5m. For the technically minded the wind is forecast at Beaufort Force 4  here,  a moderate breeze, and probably not enough to hold back the tide.