People from a wide range of backgrounds, with various levels of experience have joined us across all areas of our Flood Risk Management work. In their words, this is what they do and why they chose the Environment Agency to further their career.

Increasing sea storms. Heavier rainfall. Rising sea levels.

Carole Davies
Regional Incident & Emergency Planning Manager

A Day in the Life of the Flood Event Team

‘When we tell our friends and family that we work in Flood Event, we often get asked if we have wellies, mop and buckets and only work in the winter! If only!

The work is all year round, from identifying areas at risk of flooding to issuing the flood warnings. Each Team Member plays a certain role. On the more technical side the Flood Event Team identifies areas at risk from river or tidal flooding and sets about selecting the right forecasting method and getting gauging stations built as needed. We aim to provide 80% of the indicative floodplain with a flood warning service.

On the public facing side, the Flood Event Team gets involved with local authorities, emergency services and utilities to co-ordinate a multi-agency response during a flood event. They also organise and attend displays at public shows and give presentations to parish councils and other groups that would benefit by improving their response to flooding. We aim to get 80% of people who receive a flood warning to take effective action that reduces the damage caused by flooding.

Internally, to be able to provide a flood warning service to the public and professional partners, we need an up to date and robust system. The team maintains the computer systems and provides training for the 18 duty officers that give us a 24-hr 365 day flood warning service. This also includes providing a comprehensive manual and ensuring that all the systems are working and that there are contingencies in place should it all go wrong.

So in a day as a member of the Flood Event Team, you could be presenting to 200 parish council representatives about how to take effective action to minimise flood damage, or preparing a cost benefit analysis on the implementation of a new flood warning area, or updating a database with over 6000 entries with new telephone numbers of people in flood warning areas, or running an exercise with over 60 professional partners on the combined response to flooding, or going out and checking the tidal models are forecasting what is happening in reality, or getting some sleep after getting up at 2am to send flood warnings from the Agency Office.’