From Cleveland to Northumberland, there are groups of flood wardens in communities in the North East.

On Tuesday November 6, the Environment Agency hosted an event to say thank you, to bring groups together in one place and show how by working together they can be more resilient to flooding.

Flood wardens – from areas including Corbridge, Morpeth, North Tyneside and Croft-on-Tees - were also given a tour of the new state-of-the-art North East Area Incident Room, which opened a year ago, where it was explained to them the steps the Environment Agency takes during an incident.

Phil Taylor, the Environment Agency’s Flood Resilience Team leader for the North East, hosted the event along with the four Flood Community Engagement Officers who work across the region to support communities in preparing for flooding. He said:

The event was really successful and was our chance to say thank you to them for taking the time out of their busy lives to support their communities in preparing for and during and after a flood.

By bringing the different flood warden groups together, they were able to share ideas about their community flood plan, and learn from each other’s experiences. And it was an opportunity to talk about the work we are doing to recruit more wardens and set up new groups in communities at risk.

The local knowledge flood wardens can provide on the ground is invaluable. They complement our work by implementing their community action plans and offer a key point of contact for us to be able to warn and inform.

Northumbrian Water also attended the event with some of their volunteer Water Rangers as the two organisations work together to understand how both sets of volunteers can join forces.

The Environment Agency’s four Flood Community Engagement Officers – Taryn Al-mashgari for Tyne and Wear, Sarah Duffy for Cleveland, Anna Caygill for Durham and Darlington and Colin Hall for Northumberland – work together with local authorities to help communities understand the different types of flooding, whether they are at risk, and how to prepare in the event of a flood.

The Environment Agency is encouraging people to learn how to Prepare Act Survive in a flood to reduce the impacts of damage.