Agencies face test on reaction to floods

An exercise to test the new Staffordshire Emergency Flood Plan takes place next month.

Emergency services, the armed forces, councils, health organisations, Government departments, utilities and road firms and volunteers will take part.

They are gearing up for one of the biggest tests of their ability to cope with a natural disaster ever to be held in the Midlands. Exercise White Water will test the capabilities of services serving the people of Staffordshire to protect communities against major flooding.

Planning has been under way for several months for the exercise which follows the publication of the plan this summer and it will test procedures outlined in the plan.

White Water involves a scenario of a series of simultaneous severe floods across Staffordshire and will take place over three days and one night from November 2 to 4 and more than 130 people will be involved.

It has taken major planning over several months by officers from Staffordshire Civil Contingencies Unit, the Environment Agency and the military.

Assistant Chief Constable Douglas Paxton, chairman of the Staffordshire Resilience Forum, said: "This live, multi-agency exercise will put the new SEFP through its paces and will be one of the biggest civil contingencies exercises Staffordshire has undertaken.

"It is vital that we undertake training exercises and test our plans regularly to ensure that they are as robust as possible and would be fit for purpose if a major incident occurred."

Staffordshire is one of the first areas of the UK to complete a new plan in response to the major flooding which caused devastation across large areas of England in summer 2007.

Andy Marshall, Staffordshire's director of civil contingencies, added: "Robust flood plans were already in place for Staffordshire. But the floods of 2007 presented an opportunity to study how bodies such as councils, the emergency services and the armed forces, coped.

"Our plan draws on the lessons learned to provide a blueprint."

Although Staffordshire did not suffer as badly as some areas in the 2007 floods, large areas of the county experienced problems, including Stafford; Fazeley and Elford, near Lichfield.