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Perfect storm was cause of flash floods says council

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
Published date15 April 2024
Publication titleEvening Chronicle
The A189 Spine Road between Blyth and Cramlington was closed on Tuesday after a spell of heavy rain saw vehicles trapped in flash flooding, with council workers forced to dig ditches in a bid to divert the excess water

The local authority was criticised by members of the public for failing to maintain gullies in the area, meaning the water couldn't drain away.

However, council officers have since confirmed that the gullies were in fact cleaned in recent weeks.

Instead, the flooding was put down to a combination of factors including high tides.

Director of Local Services Paul Jones explained the situation.

He said: "We had a major issue on the Spine Road with surface water flooding.

"The first thing to say was it was not caused by a lack of maintenance - the gullies on that part of the highway had only just recently been cleaned out and were fully functioning. "What happened was a perfect storm - a series of events all coinciding at the same time.

"We had extremely wet weather running into this week and it has been for a couple of months now, so all the ground in that river catchment is just absolutely saturated.

"Any water that lands on these fields just runs straight onto the highway network.

"On that day, unfortunately we had the best part of three inches of rain which very quickly ran onto the highways.

"The floods were also connected with the high spring tide in the River Blyth.

"When the tide is high the outflows get backed up, so there was a massive amount of water going onto the roads with nowhere for it to go because the network was already backed up.

"Teams did an excellent job to look at alternative means to block off some of the water and dug a ditch to try and release some of the flooding. Ultimately nature takes its course and when...

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