Little evidence left of Perth flood nightmare
The emergency services admitted they had been astonished by the lack of evidence left behind by Wednesday's flooding in Perth.
MSP Roseanna Cunningham discusses the flood with Andy Hermiston and Stewart Edgar.
- By Mark Mackay
- Published in the Courier : 23.07.10
- Published online : 23.07.10 @ 07.33am
Streets throughout the town were under water for much of the day, while one senior officer described his first sight of Feus Road as akin to seeing a river sweep towards him.
At that point Tayside Fire and Rescue officers were deciding whether to evacuate residents from Feus Road and the Fairfield Road area.
Negotiations were also ongoing with the Royal Mail depot, which was in danger of being shut and operations temporarily moved elsewhere.
A special incident room was also set up at Perth Fire Station, where the service held crisis meetings with partners including Perth and Kinross Council, Bear Scotland, Tayside Police and the area's emergency planners.
With the first calls having been made to the fire service at around 5am on Wednesday, crews remained in many residential streets for a full 24 hours, clearing roads and pumping water from homes.
However, by the time area manager Stewart Edgar and group manager Andy Hermiston went door to door in Feus Road yesterday to offer further assistance there was little evidence of the chaos, other than some sandbags and flood sacks.
In fact there was not a single taker for their offer, although crews were standing by to continue pumping out water should anyone require it.
"I can't believe how little evidence there is of the flooding," said Mr Edgar, surveying a clear and dry Feus Road.
"It's amazing that things seem to have dried up and returned to normality so quickly."
Mr Edgar added, "At one point yesterday we had visions of 1993 (when Perth was devastated by flooding) again in the Fairfield area, although the flooding was more widespread then.
"To go from that to this overnight is perhaps the real story. It's quite incredible."
With so much water to be pumped away from streets and homes, Tayside Fire and Rescue had to think very carefully about where water could be deposited.
A number of reservoir areas were identified but there was also invaluable help from businesses and the local community.
Mr Hermiston said, "We were given the use of a pair of Scottish Water supertankers in which to deposit water, while the Shell premises on Feus Road also had empty tanks that we were able to use.
"That was indicative of the real community spirit we saw during the worst of the flooding. Residents were out all morning working alongside our crews to remove water, often by means as simple as pots and pans."
The Scottish Flood Forum will be running a drop-in support and advice centre at the Fairfield Community Centre, beginning today. It is aimed at any individual or business affected.
The forum's project manager Paul Hendy said it was crucial that the centre be up and running as soon as possible.
"We want to get the information we have out to people now," he said. "I don't want a single Perth resident to say that help was not available.
"We'll be offering support and advice to anyone affected and will also have factsheets offering a whole host of other information."
For more information see www.scottishfloodforum.org.
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