Pumping back to normality

By Mario Cacciottolo
BBC News, South Yorkshire

Flood water is being pumped away from villages in south Yorkshire

When faced with a small lake where a village used to be, the prospect of pumping out vast amounts of standing water could be a little daunting.

But this is exactly the task faced by rescue services in South Yorkshire, and particularly around the villages of Bentley and Toll Bar.

One estimate is that Toll Bar is now in a 10 km square expanse of water.

The heavy flooding which began on Monday has not relinquished its clammy grip yet, but is beginning to lessen, thanks to the efforts of the emergency planning centre in Doncaster, Silver Command.

This has seen the police and fire services from across the UK as well as Yorkshire Water, Doncaster Council, the Environment Agency and the Dun Drainage Board coming together.

On the ground police and fire crews have been joined by the Army and RNLI.

Assistant Regional Co-ordinator Norman Shaw, of Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service, has been drafted in to help.

Hi-tech equipment is being used to pump out the water at a rate of 8,000 litres (about 1,800 gallons) a minute, before it is disposed of three kilometres away.

FLOOD DAMAGE We also have conducted boat patrols, if you can call them that, to make checks on the people who have chosen to remain in their houses Det Supt Bill Hotchkiss In pictures: Flooded villages

They are using 26 high-volume pumps, of which there are only 50 in the country.

The pumps have been brought in from as far afield as London and Oxfordshire and have been split equally between Toll Bar and Bentley.

The pumps, which float, are put 60 metres into the water from its edge and follow the waterline as it begins to recede.

"According to the last aerial view that we've been given by the police, it does look as though the water is beginning to recede in the flood areas," said Mr Shaw.

Waist deep

He said the biggest problem so far had been gaining access.

"The main roads are shut off, so you have to drive in through the waters as far as you can.

Thousands of litres of water are being pumped into the River Don

"In certain places we've had to lay down the pipes underwater. In Toll Bar it's currently waist deep for about 600 to 700 metres down the main road."

The objective for the fire service, says Mr Shaw, is to get people back into their homes as soon as possible.

There are about 30 fire officers working around Toll Bar and Bentley, but this will go down as more pumps become available.

"When that's been done there will be a search of all the houses to make sure nobody has been trapped there.

"If we don't get any more heavy rain then we should be clear in about three or four days," said Mr Shaw.

More than 100 police officers have helped deal with the floods, according to Detective Superintendent Bill Hotchkiss, of South Yorkshire Police.

He is the police representative at Silver Command.

Flood tourists

"The main thing has been to support the local authority, evacuating people and feeding information back to those in the rescue centres.

"We've had officers working extended hours and calling in people on their days off.

"We've maintained a high visibility for reassurance and security and have also had to deal with traffic access to the area.

"We also have conducted boat patrols, if you can call them that, to make checks on the people who have chosen to remain in their houses. Public safety is paramount."

Curious sightseers at Toll Bar and Bentley have been making the job more difficult for the rescue services.

"We're getting people visiting the area just to look at the floods and it's not helping the situation as the fire service often need to get through," said Det Supt Hotchkiss.

"People driving around to look at the water cause congestion problems."

But he said there had been few reports of looting.

Mayor of Doncaster Martin Winter said the operation to pump water away had begun at midday on Thursday in Bentley, and on Friday in Toll Bar.

But had the pumps been available sooner there would not have been anywhere for the excess water to have been removed to, such was the extent of the flooding in this region, he said.

"When the rains first began to come the Ulley Reservoir was deemed as the priority area, so nine or 10 pumps were sent there to stop that from spilling over and causing a huge amount of flooding and damage.

"But the problem for places like Toll Bar and Bentley was that the rivers were so badly swollen that we simply couldn't have pumped the water away anyway, even if we had got hold of the equipment sooner."