Storm Babet

In October, Storm Babet arrived in Denbighshire.

Rain was forecast for Denbighshire and our Highways Officers were prepared for the bad weather, but maybe not as bad as what was encountered. It was certainly much wetter than had been expected.

As soon as the Customer Service Centre opened, they were inundated with flooding and gully enquiries and initially, these were in the north of the County, but gradually, throughout the day, these enquiries were coming from all over Denbighshire.

The Highways Officers worked tirelessly for a 24 hour period to ensure the safety of our residents and our roads and worked with a variety of contractors to undertake various works that were needed. On that day alone there were more than 250 flooding and gully enquiries logged - more than what is usually received in 12 months. Areas of Rhyl, Prestatyn, Dyserth and St. Asaph were particularly badly hit.

The following week, the clear up began. A lot of properties had experienced some kind of flooding, but approximately 60 properties had water coming into their properties.

There was also a lot of damage to our roads and structures (22 culverts and retaining walls damaged at a repair cost of at least £300,000) including debris washed up in many places and the clean up and repair work is still ongoing. At some locations the team has been able to address the issues but at others it’s going to take time dependant on funding or other work schemes that impact that area.

The Council has a statutory duty to investigate the cause of all internal flooding incidents and, in conjunction with Natural Resources Wales and Welsh Water, this work has already begun. Recommendations as to how future issues can be avoided will be made in due course.

Climate Change is affecting us and we are experiencing many more storms in the autumn and winter seasons. Our teams work tirelessly when this happens and our resources can be stretched and we thank our residents for being patient during these periods.

If you’re concerned about flooding in your area at any time, please refer to the contact details on the Council's floods webpage.

Below are some photographs that were taken by staff during the flooding.

Gritting the County's roads

The Council carries out precautionary salting on some roads when temperatures are predicted to fall near freezing point. This salting work takes place either at 6am or 6pm, to avoid peak traffic times.

These are the types of roads which are prioritised:

• Main classified routes (A and B roads)
• Principal bus routes
• Access routes to hospitals, schools and cemeteries
• Access to police, fire, ambulance and rescue services
• Primary routes serving substantial villages / communities
• Main industrial routes that are important to the local economy
• Main access routes to shopping areas
• Areas where known problems exist, such as exposed areas, steep gradients and other roads liable to icing.

The salt has to be crushed by traffic to make it effective.

Unfortunately, there are some occasions where we cannot salt the roads before the onset of icy conditions, for example:

• When rain is followed by rapidly clearing skies, salting is normally deferred until the rain stops to prevent it being washed off.
• Dawn frost occurs on dry roads. When early morning dew falls on a cold road and freezes on impact. It is impossible to forecast with any accuracy when this will occur.
• Rush hour snowfall. When rain turns to snow coinciding with rush hour traffic, early salting cannot take place as it would wash off, and gritters cannot make progress because of traffic congestion.

Here is Councillor Barry Mellor, Lead Member for Environment and Transport talking about gritting in Denbighshire.