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Our Head of Flood and Incident Risk Management, Jeremy Parr, has reflected on the impacts of the recent Winter Storms in this blog.
We would like your help and are also here to help you
We are here to help advise what you can do, before, during and after a flood.
You can visit naturalresources.wales/flooding for advice and information or please feel free to get in touch with us if you have any questions. We will try to answer any queries you may have. If your query needs to be answered by one of our partners, we will do our best to get those answers for you but please bear with us, as there may be a delay. Answers will be based on information available to date, as investigations continue.
It’s also a great help if you can provide us with information so we can improve our own understanding of flooding events, and our Flood Warning Service for the future. For example:
- Do you have time-stamped, dated photos with specific locations taken during or after the flooding, that you would be willing to share?
- Were there any actions from your flood plan, where you realised that you needed to make changes? Would you be willing to share anything you’ve learnt?
Thanks to everyone who attended or supported a network event in Cardiff or Aberystwyth.
We welcomed 26 community members and 39 partners to the events. During the morning session, we worked through a fictional flood scenario on tables that mixed communities with professional organisations to ensure a mix of experience and opportunities to learn from each other. Wales Council for Voluntary Action shared information about their Volunteering Portal which aims to make advertising volunteer opportunities and registering interest in them as simple and accessible as possible. The afternoon session also included time for one on one conversations and the opportunity to find out more from organisations involved in flooding and who offer support to communities who live with flood risk.
 Cardiff, September 2023
Aims:
- Network with others who face similar challenges to learn from each other
- Understand how different organisations involved in flooding work together in Wales
- Review practical actions and challenges for communities/ community volunteers during a flooding incident
- Meet representatives from other organisations one-to-one
Overall feedback confirmed that these events are valued by both partners and community flood volunteers, with networking opportunities rated highly. Attendees would like to see more of the public and partners represented and value the opportunity to talk to others about flood risk. We will continue with the approach we used this year to plan the events with plenty of lead time to promote sign up from communities and professional partners. NRW is encouraged to receive such positive feedback and we will consider all comments in order to improve future sessions.
Organisations attending included:
National Flood Forum; Blaenau Gwent Council; Newport City Council; Ceredigion Council; Cardiff Council; Torfaen Council; Powys Council; Caerphilly County Borough Council; Mid and West Wales Fire & Rescue; Welsh Government; Flood Re; British Red Cross; Wales Council for Voluntary Action; Civil Aid Voluntary Rescue Association; REACT Disaster response; Cardiff Third Sector Council; Swansea University; Royal Society for the Protection of Birds; Association of British Insurers; Coastguard; Ceredigion Association of Voluntary Organisations; Ceredigion Local Nature Partnership; Police; NRW People and Places; National Flood Risk Services; Warning and Informing; Asset Performance and Community Engagement & Resilience.
Due to Storm Babet affecting North Wales, we took the decision to postpone the Llandudno event until March 2024.
We’re making improvements to the Flood Warning Service in Wales this year which will lead to a more tailored service for the people of Wales . There are a few simple steps we need people to take, and we need your support to spread the word.
The free Flood Warning Service operated by Natural Resources Wales (NRW) provides vital information to signed-up customers in areas at risk from flooding from rivers and the sea, giving advance warning and time for people to take action to protect themselves, their loved ones and their property.
The system which underpins it is currently provided to NRW by the Environment Agency (EA). This includes the opt-out registration process which was developed by the EA to reach properties that had not proactively registered for the warning service. This registration automatically pre-registers customers via legal agreements with telephone operators, with the option for customers to ‘opt out’ if they wished.
However, our evidence shows that customer engagement and awareness of their registration is very low.
As part of our ongoing efforts to deliver an improved service for the people of Wales, NRW will launch a new, more bespoke Flood Warning Information Service Wales (FWISW) later this year.
Through NRW’s service, customers will be able to customise the service they receive by choosing which warning messages to receive, their language preference, the best means of contact, and can add other locations of interest.
We have already started a concerted effort to alert the opt-out users to the fact that the process is changing and that they will need to take action to sign up for the service. If opt-out users do not to act to update their registration, they will no longer continue to receive Flood Warnings.
We’re asking them, and other people living in areas at risk of flooding to register to the service by:
Visiting Natural Resources Wales / Sign up to receive flood warnings
Calling Floodline on 0345 988 1188. Typetalk: 0345 602 634
This is part of a wider effort to encourage everyone in Wales to check their flood risk via a simple postcode checker on our website and make sure they too are registered with the full flood warning service if they find they are at risk.
Our flood warnings are available on our website where the pages are refreshed every 15 minutes. For any queries on the Flood Warning Information Service Wales, please contact FWIS@cyfoethnaturiolcymru.gov.uk.
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