Shropshire helps in Yorkshire floods

Firefighters from Shropshire were called to Yorkshire to help the local brigade deal with severe flooding, despite having their own rainfall worries closer to home.

Chief Fire Officer Rod Hammerton said the national emergency command requested a boat crew from Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service on Thursday, November 7.

He said they initially wanted to hold their boat back because of concerns about the weather in their own county, but were overruled by the Liverpool-based National Resilience Assurance Team.

Officer Hammerton told a fire authority committee meeting that Shropshire was, luckily, able to spare the boat, and had been “strangely fortunate” throughout the week when rivers in Barnsley and Doncaster flooded and Sheffield saw a month’s worth of rain in just 36 hours.

Officer Hammerton told the Shropshire and Wrekin Fire and Rescue Authority’s Strategy and Resources Committee: “We did deploy a boat immediate on the night the request came in.

“The first thing we said was that we didn’t know if we could go.

“We said we might get rain, we might hold our boat back.

“The national co-ordinating centre said no, we need it now. So we went, we said we’d be up in the time it takes to drive.”

Deputy Chief Fire Officer Andy Johnson said the boat and crew, who are on the NRAT list of assets available to other areas in an emergency, were in South Yorkshire from the early hours of Friday morning until Tuesday.

Officer Hammerton said: “”We’ve been strangely fortunate that the pivot of the weather seemed to miss us.

“That meant we could be deployed up in Yorkshire.”

Committee chairman Chris Mellings congratulated the brigade’s staff for their work both at home and in Yorkshire.

Heavy rain in Shropshire has seen flood warnings issued on the Severn and Teme rivers, along with school closures and the suspension of the Shrewsbury-to-Welshpool rail service.