Exercise prepares for flood emergency

THE emergency services and local authorities in North Devon have taken part in a flood emergency response exercise.

The exercise, which was confined to paper, was designed to test the strength of flood recovery plans in the area.

Specialists from North Devon and Torridge district councils, Devon County Council, the emergency services, voluntary agencies, utility companies, health authorities, the Environment Agency and the RAF simulated what they would do to help the area recover in the event of a major flood.

Exercise Brighid, as it was called, was a "tabletop exercise" based on the scenario of a coastal flood affecting the Taw/Torridge estuary and it focused on Barnstaple and Bideford.

A spokesman from North Devon Council said that in the event of a major incident, such as a flood, the first on the scene will be the police and other emergency services, who take the lead to rescue people and contain the situation; this is called the response phase.

The incident then moves into the recovery phase and the police hand over control to the local authorities who lead the clean-up.

It was the first exercise of its kind in North Devon.

North Devon Council chairs the multi-agency exercise group, which has spent the past 18 months preparing for the exercise, which was not publicised before it happened. The council has been testing a new computer-based major incident logging system and emergency co-ordination centre in the Barnstaple civic centre.