Why every flood – or near flood – event brings things to learn in Calderdale

Calderdale Flood Recovery and Resilience Programme Board members heard how responses improved each time, as they assessed the impact of a near flooding event at the end of January, almost a year on from the February 2020 flooding in the wake of Storm Ciara.

Calderdale avoided flooding when Storm Christoph struck through January 18-21, which saw 77 millimetres of rainfall in 24 hours and 108mm fall in 48 hours, Adrian Gill of the Environment Agency told the board.

Ciara had also seen around 108 millimetres of rain fall on Calderdale in 2020, but in just 18 hours, this being the difference between the two events.

Councillor Scott Patient (Lab, Luddenden Foot), also a Calder Valley flood warden, said: “I think we were somewhat lucky in terms of the amount of rainfall we got – more than last year but over a longer period of time.”

Calderdale Council Chief Executive Robin Tuddenham said key community leadership and prompt responses had been challenging because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Flood Wardens and partners had stepped up rapidly.

“We did anticipate a risk as big as last year and possibly worse. The level of response was excellent,” he said.

It tested the virtual hub which had been set up and the response saw a lot of hotel and temporary accommodation lined up, strong engagement with Yorkshire Water who are partners in a reservoir drawdown scheme which itself was challenged by recent snow melt, adding to the learning around that, said Mr Tuddenham.

Chairing the meeting, Coun Jane Scullion (Lab, Luddenden Foot) said near misses brought more learning.

“It was a useful practice run in some ways – yes, we were lucky in the weather but the levels of preparation the council did were just extraordinary.

“If there are problems again over the next few weeks we have to guard against people becoming complacent over flooding events,” she said.

Yorkshire Water’s Granville Davies said regarding the trial to keep reservoirs ten per cent below maximum, snow melt in the days before Storm Christoph had meant there had been little storage benefit, but even when full reservoirs did slow flow from the catchment.

Flood Warden Katie Kimber said emergency planning meetings which had been held twice a day had been very valuable.

Good communications meant people were up to date and the drain unblocker had worked well especially in Todmorden.

“The virtual hub was working fantastic and kicked into action,” she said.

There were still issues of people who could not, or were unaware of, access the information online.

Neil Fearnley, of the council’s flood team, said there were still some issues with surface water which residents had to deal with.