Natural Resources Wales to review Storm Bert weather warnings

The warnings issued to residents in Wales about the severity of Storm Bert by Natural Resources Wales (NRW) will be reviewed in the coming days, an employee has said.

A major incident was declared in the Rhondda Cynon Taf region of south Wales on Sunday, with between 200 and 300 properties in the area affected by flooding.

Local council leader Andrew Morgan said the weather was worse than forecast and he was “amazed” only a yellow weather warning had been issued.

Welsh First Minister Eluned Morgan said it had been “a really difficult weekend” and was “absolutely devastating just before Christmas” for those affected.

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Sian Williams, head of operations north west for NRW, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday the agency would look into whether any part of its data gathering for the storm had not been done correctly.

Asked if NRW gave Welsh residents enough time to prepare for Storm Bert with its flood alerts, Ms Williams said: “Coming on to today now and into the next few days and weeks, every event that we have we do reviews of them, and we will be looking at that.

“That is a report that we’ve had from a few different places, saying that their people didn’t have enough warning yesterday morning, so absolutely that is something that we need to look at.

“Did something go wrong? Were the river levels that we use as triggers set in the wrong place? We don’t know yet what the timeline was, but it is important that we review it, that we look at it, that we learn those lessons.

“If we need to do it sooner, then that’s definitely something that we will look at doing.”

In a statement on Monday, NRW said it had issued flood warnings before the downpour but there was “no silver bullet” to managing the flood risk in the area around the River Taff.

Sally Davies, duty tactical manager Wales at NRW, said: “Our teams worked around the clock, working with emergency services to respond to this significant incident. As we do with every significant flood event, we will now review the response as we enter the recovery phase.”

Ms Davies said a “very intense, localised area of rain” up to 160mm fell in the area on Sunday, and that the River Taff rose 300mm every 15 minutes at the height of the rainfall.

She added: “We are working closely with the local authority to review the flood risk in many of the area across the Taff catchment (including Pontypridd), to inform our long-term flood risk management plans.

“But there is no silver bullet. As a steep and fast responding catchment, with much of the floodplain already built upon, reducing the flood risk is not at all straightforward.

“Taking an ad-hoc approach to reduce the risk in one community will likely increase the flood risk in another community.”

John Morgan, manager of the Rheola pub in Porth, close to Pontypridd, blamed NRW for not doing enough to maintain the waterways.

He told the PA news agency: “This is the third time in four years that we have been flooded.

“Years ago, this river used to be dredged every year now it’s not dredged at all, it all builds up under the bridge and therefore all the water backs up over.

“Natural Resources Wales were in here for the last flood and they denied any knowledge of the bridge being blocked up, they’re not interested.”

Mr Morgan said the cost of cleaning and carrying out repairs every time the pub flooded ran into the thousands of pounds, and that the heating system was not working after the storm.

He added: “What good are warnings at three o’clock in the morning, they are no good.

“What needs to be done is the defences, dredge the rivers, build walls.

“I know it costs money, and I know money is tight, but I feel sorry for the people in Pontypridd, their houses are absolutely worthless.”

A further six flood warnings and 18 flood alerts also remained in place on Monday.

But Ms Williams said the worst impact of the storm had now subsided and that the forecast looked “good” over the next couple of days.

She said: “Thankfully, the river levels and the rain has mostly now passed, the river levels are dropping.

“We do expect now that those flood warnings and alerts will mostly come down today and tomorrow. We believe that the flooding has peaked now in Monmouthshire, so even on the slower-running rivers on the east of the country we do expect those levels to drop now.”