Practical Tips: How to Reduce the Impact of a Flood

An article from Mary Long-Dhonau OBE – Property Flood Resilience Champion – on what practical steps you can quickly take to reduce the impact of a flood at your property:

“When a flood is imminent, our natural instinct is to protect our homes from the devastating impact a flood can have. But what if we can’t afford to install certified flood barriers or doors? Or perhaps we are waiting for them to be installed and a flood may be on its way?

While the following suggestions may not be as effective as official barriers, they can help to reduce the amount of flood water that enters your home.

1. Stay Informed

Sign up for free flood warnings: If you’re at risk of river flooding, make sure you have signed-up for free Environment Agency flood warnings. This early alert system allows you to act quickly when a flood is approaching. Sign up here: https://www.gov.uk/sign-up-for-flood-warnings.

Monitor weather reports: If you are at risk of surface water flooding, do keep a close eye on weather warnings and listen to local radio, especially during heavy rainfall. You will have to act quickly, so it is really important that have written a flood plan – see below!

2. Prepare a Flood Plan

Having a well-thought-out flood plan is essential. It helps you act quickly when time is of the essence:

• Prioritise items to move: Know what belongings you want to move out of harm’s way first. Don’t forget about your car – you don’t want to deal with both a flooded house and a flooded vehicle!
• Identify storage locations: If you live in a bungalow or have limited upstairs space, arrange for friends or relatives to look after your most sentimental and valuable items during a flood threat. Include these details in your flood plan.
• Gather supplies: Keep a collection of lidded plastic boxes ready for storing and transporting items to safer locations. Store important belongings on higher shelves and on top of wardrobes, where possible. 
• Flood Plan template: The BeFloodReady website includes an example plan, plus a host of tips of what you should do if you receive a flood alert: https://www.befloodready.uk/before-a-flood/create-a-personal-flood-plan

3. Protecting Your Home

Airbricks

Seal with aluminium tape: If you have airbricks, cover airbricks with wide aluminium tape to help prevent water ingress. One large roll can cover many airbricks and can be purchased online or in hardware stores (such as Screwfix, B&Q, Toolstation etc).

External Doors

• Use waterproof tape: For any external doors, apply wide waterproof (gaffer) tape up to about 0.6 meters high across your external doors and along the bottom. If water starts to leak, leave the tape in place; it will be holding back a significant volume of water.
• Add plastic coverings: Fix a large piece of plastic over doors using gaffer tape and weigh it down for additional protection.
• Fit wooden barriers: Try cutting a large piece of wood to size to fit over door openings. Use quick-setting silicone sealant to secure them in place when needed. Remember, you’ll need solvent to remove the sealant afterwards. Alternatively, you can make wooden slots to slide the wood into and then seal them (pictured).

This will need advance preparation and make sure you have where it’s stored written into your plan.

Absorbent Cushions

• Invest in flood sacks: If you can, invest in some large absorbent cushions (FloodSax is one brand), similar to oversized baby nappies! They can soak up any water that seeps through the gaffer tape. Each can absorb up to twenty litres of water so are useful for soaking up water after the flood. Perhaps consider sharing the cost of a box with neighbours.

Drains and Toilets

• Block toilets: Push a deflated small child’s football into the toilet bowl as it will help to stop sewage backflow. If unavailable, fill a couple of heavy-duty rubble sacks with soil, double them up for strength, and put them into the toilet. Shut the lid and use the gaffer tape to secure it.
• Cover shower drains: Place gaffer tape over any downstairs shower drain and put something heavy on top to prevent water from coming up through the pipes.

Protecting Furniture and Belongings

• Elevate curtains: Fold your curtains over the curtain track or tie them in a large knot to keep them dry.
• Raise furniture:
  • Put four large wellington boots on the legs of your kitchen or dining tables and stack the contents of your kitchen cupboards on top. You can even use large flower vases, plastic litter bins or cut-off 6-pint plastic milk bottles in place of the boots.
  • Use decorating trestle tables to lift sofas and place chairs on top of them.
  • Put bricks in plastic bags and use them to elevate your furniture. For lighter items, plastic litter bins should work. If you’re alone, use a plank of wood under the furniture to help lift it more easily.

While all this may sound like an awful lot of hard work, it is time and effort well spent.

On average, people are out of their homes for around nine months after being flooded. Taking moves now to reduce the amount of flood water that can enter your home and protecting your sentimental and hard-earned belongings out of harms way, can make a difference in the aftermath of a flood.

Please stay safe and be prepared!

Share

RAIN celebrated for Digital Excellence at the Flood & Coast Awards

The Resilience and Innovation Northants (RAIN) project, led by unitary authorities West Northamptonshire Council in partnership with North Northamptonshire Council, has won the prestigious Digital Excellence category at the Flood & Coast Excellence Awards.

This recognition celebrates two of its project innovations. The first is the development of cutting-edge computer models to help build better understanding of the risk of flooding from multiple sources. The second is the creation of an innovative web-based mapping tool that provides a comprehensive view of flood risks across Harpers Brook and Wootton Brook catchments, which is helping with the delivery of its resilience measures and community engagement.

Developed by HR Wallingford, the multi-source computer models represent a novel approach to understanding the flood risk since they combine data and models from three of the Risk Management Authorities into a single system.  Traditionally assessed separately; the county councils and unitary authorities are concerned with surface water flooding, the Environment Agency with river flooding and the Water company with urban drainage flooding; our innovative model recognises the interchange between all three systems and enables the identification of measures to tackle flooding from all sources.

The intelligent web platform, developed by HR Wallingford working closely with JBA Consulting and the project team, combines data and results from the models into a collaborative, map based workspace. The input from JBA Consulting, based on extensive Property Flood Resilience (PFR) delivery experience, helped to refine the platform alongside local knowledge provided by the RAIN team to give a complete view of the three main flooding sources that impact the two catchments, enabling the project team to pool its expertise to design the best collection of flood resilience measures.

This allows the project to address resilience in a holistic way and to implement effective measures, such as PFR and Natural Flood Management (NFM) initiatives where they provide the greatest benefit.

Alan Ryan, Project Lead for the RAIN Project explains, “Our model offers a revolutionary way to visualise, understand and manage flood risks by assessing how urban drainage systems, surface water, and river systems interact during extreme weather events. This allows us to help communities be better prepared for potential flooding but also to implement effective, community-centred measures.”

By combining flood models, shared data, and real-world experiences, RAIN enables stakeholders to identify and implement the best strategies for flood resilience. As a result, the project is actively involving residents and landowners, offering them resources and measures to better prepare for and respond to future flooding events.

Mike Panzeri, Technical Director at HR Wallingford adds; “Climate change, urban development and aging infrastructure are making it increasingly difficult to manage flood risk using traditional methods. Digital innovations, such as our multi-source models and collaborative web platform can help build communities that are more resilient to flooding in the future.”

Cllr Rebecca Breese, West Northamptonshire Council’s Cabinet Member for Environment, Recycling and Waste said: “It is fantastic news that the hard work of all involved in the Resilience and Innovation Northants (RAIN) project is being recognised, for not one but two innovative pieces of work. These technologies will help to build community resilience so that we can empower people to work together to limit the impact of future flooding events.”

Cllr Pinder Chauhan, West Northamptonshire Council’s Assistant Cabinet Member for Flooding said: “Through partnership working, funding from DEFRA’s Flood and Coastal Innovation Programme and engagement with local residents and landowners, we have been able to put in place measures to respond to flooding. The innovative projects allow us to offer resources and guidance that is tailored to the needs of communities locally.”

Concludes Alan Ryan; “Flood risk is a reality for many communities within the Harpers Brook and Wootton Brook catchments. Together, we are not just helping to manage risks, we are building community resilience with tangible impacts across economic, environmental, and social spheres. Our journey is about empowering communities through collaborative technology and innovation, and potentially setting a blueprint for resilience everywhere.”

The RAIN Project would like to thank project partners HR Wallingford, Environment Agency, Anglian Water, and JBA Consulting for their role in the creation of the web-based platform.

The RAIN Project is funded by Defra as part of the £200 million Flood and Coastal Innovation Programmes which is managed by the Environment Agency. The programmes will drive innovation in flood and coastal resilience and adaptation to a changing climate.

For more details on the Flood & Coast Excellence Awards, visit: https://environmentagency.blog.gov.uk/2024/07/19/flood-coast-excellence-awards-2024-celebrating-innovation-and-collaboration/.

###

Share