Wells flood wardens test radios during exercise

The flooded quay at Wells. Picture: Ian Burt (Image: Archant © 2013)

The Wells Flood Action volunteers, who warn people living along the quay and in low-lying areas of the town in the event of flooding, can now keep in radio contact with their control room.

The group has divided the town into seven sectors. They include The Quay, Freeman Street and low lying areas of Burnt Street, Polka Road, Great Eastern Way and East End.

At a briefing before the exercise, Wells Flood Action joint coordinator Mike Strong said they should imagine that the Environment Agency had issued a flood warning for a 5.4m tide.

He added: 'The purpose of today is to practise greeting people on their doorsteps, the information we have to give them and the things we need to get off them.

'We have quite a few homes where we have no numbers at all so we need to get landlines, and if possible mobiles.

'The method will be going around, knocking on doors and reporting back to the control room.' Mr Strong said there were areas of the town where radios had not worked well in the past, asking volunteers to go to far flung areas of town to test the new equipment.

After the exercise Marie Strong, who jointly co-ordinates the group with her husband, said: 'We're very pleased. Everyone, when they got back to the de-brief, said they found it very useful.

'We were getting very clear reception in areas where we couldn't get anything before, either mobile or any of the other radios we tried, so the repeater station must have done the trick.' Another new item of equipment for the volunteers are voice recorders. In wet weather, pen and paper soon disintegrate.

Also attending the exercise was a flood warden from Wisbech, who hopes to launch a similar scheme in the Fenland town.