Morpeth

Question 1

Date

Answer 1

September 6th 2008

Question 2

Houses and Businesses damaged

Answer 2

900 houses and 90 businesses severely damaged or destroyed.

Question 3

Impacts on people

Answer 3

Around 2000 forced to sleep away from homes.

Question 4

Human impacts contributing to poor response

Answer 4

One area of the town received no warning of the flood whatsoever - the Environmental Agency’s automated telephone warning service missed the area of the town, purely down to human error as they claimed it was essentially “a click of the mouse in the wrong place”.
Lack of sandbags and inadequate drainage systems - resident Ian Smith claimed that he called the council 7 times for sandbags but there weren’t enough.
Residents couldn’t access leisure boats of any kind.

Question 5

Preparation

Answer 5

Planning and preparation for Morpeth floods started in 2000, with three major multi-agency exercises taking place in 2001,2002 and 2005 to rehearse the roles played in future flood events.

Question 6

Physical factors

Answer 6

On the 4th, 5th and 6th of September 2008, the Morpeth Area received 235% of the rainfall expected in the whole month of September usually.
The Wansbeck River Valley, which leads to Morpeth, is thin and steep resulting in high discharge, reaching the town centre very quickly causing it to overflow and break the river’s banks.

Question 7

Long term responses

Answer 7

After the 2008 flood, all the local councils’ responsibilities were taken over by the newly formed Northumbria Local Resilience Forum.
£21 million spent on erecting new flood defences after 2008.