Your community needs you
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Author: |
Tracey Hollis |
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Date published: |
20-Dec-2007 |
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Keywords: |
Flood wardens are needed in South Yorkshire to join teams protecting their communities against river flooding.
The call is for people living in areas of high flood risk, who can support other residents and provide on-the-ground information about rising water levels. It follows the devastating summer floods in the county.
Eyewitness reports from the volunteer wardens can also help inform the Environment Agency’s flood teams in the Leeds regional warning centre, where state-of-the-art technology monitors rivers and streams electronically across the county. Warden reports provide much-needed detail, and they also play an important role by ensuring that local residents have received flood warnings.
Since the summer new wardens have come forward in the Barnsley and Sheffield areas, and more are needed across South Yorkshire.
“The additional information a warden can provide to us and the warnings they give residents can mean extra precious minutes to save people and property,” said Flood Incident Management Officer Graham Lindsey, “Flood wardens are an essential way to protect communities and homes, and we need more of them.
“I really admire people like Sue Greaves of Chapeltown in Sheffield, and Jill Auty, who runs the post office in Darton,” added Graham, “they were flooded twice in 10 days yet were still prepared to help the local community prepare for any further flooding.
“We are now actively looking for more volunteers to come forward in communities along the Dearne valley – Darfield, Lundwood, and Bolton upon Dearne in particular, where we don’t have any warden groups, and in Chapeltown, to join Sue Greaves.”
Jill Auty works with a team of five volunteers in Darton, where residents have a much better chance of contacting someone in a flooding emergency. She said: “Flooding is obviously a big issue in my area, and as a flood warden I can be an important link between the Environment Agency, the local authority’s Emergency Planning Team and the community here in Darton.”
To become a flood warden you must live in or close to an area affected by river flooding – to find out if you’re eligible ring 0845 988 1188. To find out if your home is in a flood zone you can visit the Environment Agency’s flood maps online at www.environment-agency.gov.uk
To have a chat about what being flood warden means please call Flood Incident Management Officer Graham Lindsey on 0113 213 4969.
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