NI Water stands down flood team

Published Friday, 29 June 2012
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Northern Ireland Water has announced it has stood down the incident team which was set up to deal with widespread flooding across Belfast.

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It comes as hundreds of families whose homes were devastated continue to tackle the fallout from Wednesday's torrential showers.

Many have already claimed their £1,000 emergency payments from the City Council.

Around 100 cheques are expected to be received between now and next Tuesday.

Meanwhile NI Water said its staff will remain on high alert over the weekend.

A statement said: "NI Water has stood down its incident team which was established in response to the flooding events on Wednesday evening.

"However, staff remain on high alert and are ready to react if the situation changes over the weekend.

"NI Water is focussing attention and resources on providing assistance to those customers who were affected by sewerage related flooding.

"However, the organisation will be monitoring weather forecasts closely to ensure we can provide a prompt response to any situation which may arise over the weekend."

Around 1,200 calls have been made to the Belfast City Council's freephone flood helpline on 0800 707 6965.

Contractors are currently assisting 175 affected households - and they have also delivered more than 4,000 sandbags across the city.

However the agencies in charge of the flood response have come in for criticism over how the crisis was handled.

Finance Minister Sammy Wilson admitted that three quarters of calls to the Flood Line service were not answered.

He clashed with East Belfast MP Naomi Long on UTV Live Tonight after claiming that there had been no prediction for the torrential rain and flooding that occurred in Northern Ireland.

"I don't accept that," Ms Long argued. "We've had one of the wettest Junes in terms of recorded history.

"We knew there was saturation capacity in terms of our rivers and our ground water table, it was also I think high tide in Belfast Lough so that was going to cause additional problems."

The minister responded: "I will not defend the indefensible.

"I have always made it clear that I believe government should be honest when mistakes are made and when inadequate service has been provided."

Mr Wilson added that his department will have to consider making more resources available for Flood Line.

Almost two inches of rain fell in just a couple of hours on Wednesday, overwhelming drainage systems and leading to potentially contaminated water seeping into properties.

NI Water said it has assisted with the initial cleanup of 158 properties across the region which suffered internal flooding related to sewage.

Even the politicians have been affected after power cuts hit the Stormont Estate - Parliament Buildings is continuing to operate on a limited power supply.

Meanwhile the Dundonald Ice Bowl in east Belfast, which was badly affected by the flood water, will remain closed to the public until at least next Friday.

First Minister Peter Robinson said there must be a service that provides "instant contact" for people affected by flooding.

"I do not believe that was the case and a number of people that I have spoken to have been very critical about the ability to make contact and to get a fast response," said the DUP man.

"We have to recognise that there has been a significant change in weather conditions.

"That requires us to re-engineer the infrastructures that we have to make sure that we can deal with these kinds of events."

The Met Office has said that Northern Ireland has no severe weather warnings for Friday.

EXTERNAL LINKS / CONTACTS
Anyone affected by the flooding should contact Floodline on 0300 2000 100. Any customer affected by out-of-sewer flooding should contact NI Water on 08457 44 00 88.
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1 Comments
C in Belfast wrote (329 days ago):
Naomi Long what would you know. Why don't you go into the floodlines office during a major incident and lets see how you cope.
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