Flood Resilience

During the widespread flooding across Devon in 2012, it became apparent that despite best efforts, emergency services and other flood response organisations were stretched and unable to respond to many of the reported flood incidents as quickly as they would have liked. As a result, many communities have developed community emergency plans and/or flood plans to help become better prepared and more resilient in future flood events.

A community plan can reduce the impact, disruption and trauma of a flood by:

• Sharing local knowledge of flood risk and agreeing to appropriate actions to reduce the risk to people and property
• Making professional organisations aware of local flood issues, raising awareness of local people’s concerns
• Improving communication before, during and after a flood incident by involving the right people at the right time
• Clarifying the responsibilities of all those involved
• Encouraging the involvement of volunteers
• Helping people and households be better prepared

Creating a community flood plan allows communities to have more control and the ability to help themselves. For further information and advice on developing a community flood plan visit Flood Plan UK.

An excellent way of increasing flood awareness in your community and promoting the action you are taking is to create a community flood webpage. Your community flood page will contain information that is relevant to your local area and can be as detailed as you like. It’s your page, so include what you think is relevant.

Flood Resilience Community Pathfinder Project

The Flood Resilience Community Pathfinder Project is a partnership between Devon County Council, Plymouth City Council, Torbay Council and the Environment Agency. The funding will go towards a package of measures to improve local community resilience so that they are better prepared against the risk of flooding.

Project aims:

• Development of community level Flood Action Plans
• Provision of monitoring equipment (river/rain gauges) to provide flood warnings to communities
• Establishment of community sand bag stores
• Training of volunteer community ‘flood wardens’ and formation of ‘flood groups’
• Making communities more aware and prepared for flooding
• Property level protection measures such as flood gates and barriers may be considered where there are no other reasonable alternatives

24 communities located within rapid response catchments across Devon, Torbay and Plymouth have been selected to benefit from the project for 2013-2015: