Today our Team Equipment Officer (Water) whilst in the company of a member of NEWSAR Team received a request to join and assist the NEWSAR Team in their response to the possibility of flooding events occurring in North Wales.

The following is an account of what happened from John himself;

“At 08.30hrs today NEWSAR Team was requested to go to standby and assemble at their Base for 11.00hrs, to be in a position to respond to possible flooding to the North Wales coastline during high tide at 12.00hrs.”

“A Bronze and Silver Control was set up in St Asaph with North Wales Police, North Wales Fire and Rescue Service, RNLI, HMCG and Mountain Rescue all represented and present.”

“The Rhyl area was on a flood warning and the area around Point of Ayr was on a severe flood warning.”

“If flooding occurred we were likely to be deployed from EWSAR teams Base / HQ at Loggerheads, near Mold, in all three NEWSAR team vehicles (two Land Rovers and the Incident Control Vehicle with the team raft) to the Point of Ayr area.”

“As no flooding occurred in either Rhyl or Point of Ayr the team was stood down at 1430.”

“A total of 10x SRT NEWSAR members plus myself (Whitewater Rescue Technician and Whitewater Raft Guide) and Iain Ashcroft (TL) and Gerald Davidson (DTL) (Gerald was at Bronze Control and Iain was running from home/base).”

“Cheshire Search and Rescue Team also declared a Flood First Responder Team available at the request of NEWSAR, should they be required, and in turn Cheshire SART requested of Bolton MRT Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE, that should Cheshire SART be mobilised to assist NEWSART, that Bolton MRT would assist to provide additional cover for the Cheshire SRT team operational area.”

“An unknown number of Fire SRT Teams and RNLI SRT teams (all held at St Asaph) were also involved.”