Council Leader pays tribute to community spirit during Storm Darragh

Denbighshire County Council’s Leader, Councillor Jason McLellan, has thanked and praised residents, staff, contractors and volunteers following the extreme weather which hit the County over the weekend.

Councillor Jason McLellan said:

“Many Denbighshire residents faced a very difficult time over this weekend, with Storm Darragh bringing strong winds and heavy rain throughout the county.

As a result of this weather, some people witnessed power cuts and structural damage to their property.

Despite the impact of this latest storm, once again, Denbighshire residents’ community spirit has shone through the inclement weather, with many residents going the extra mile to help each other.

I’d like to thank them for their co-operation this weekend, as well as all of the volunteers, staff and contractors who worked hard to assist during the extreme weather.”

The Council experienced a surge in demand during Storm Darragh, and between 10:30pm on Friday 6th and 8am on Sunday 8th, over 150 reports were logged. Some of these reports covered a wide range of issues, including, 59 reports of fallen trees and 30 reports of flooding. A further 23 reports included damage to buildings and utility connections.

Additional out of hours teams were deployed over the weekend in anticipation of the storm, and were supported by external contractors for specialist works such as tree clearance, traffic management and road closures, where this was deemed necessary.

The out of hours teams were also supported by support service colleagues, who provided assistance with the co-ordination and planning of resources, along with issue of regular updates.

Councillor Julie Matthews, Deputy Leader of the Council, and Lead Member for Corporate Strategy, Policy and Equalities said:

“I would like to thank the tireless work of Council Officers over this past weekend, some of whom have worked very long hours, helping residents during some of the worst parts of Storm Darragh.

Now that this storm has passed, we are now in the recovery phase, and Officers will continue to work hard to help those residents who have been impacted the most.”

Councillor Barry Mellor, Lead member for Environment and Transport said:

“Many of our roads along our network were impacted during Storm Darragh over this past weekend. We saw issues with fallen trees, debris and power cables.

Thanks to the swift action of our out of hours teams, along with a multi-agency approach, many of these issues were quickly dealt with, and we saw a number of our roads reopened and cleared.”