Highways teams prepared for possible flooding after yellow warnings issued

Shropshire Council’s highways service is prepared and ready to deal with the effects of thunderstorms forecast for the next two days.

The Met Office has issued yellow warnings for thunderstorms for today (Wednesday 26 August) and tomorrow (Thursday 27 August), with both covering Shropshire. The warnings mean there is a risk of flooding and disruption caused by rain.

The council’s highway team has all resources mobilised and ready to respond to any weather event that may impact Shropshire’s roads. This includes its own in-house drainage teams and teams from its contractors Kier and Multevo.

As the impacts from thunderstorms can be hard to predict, the council will work with Kier to establish an incident room should the impact of the weather require a full council response, and will be monitoring weather forecasts from the Met Office throughout this week.

During thunderstorms, the highway drainage network can become quickly overwhelmed as flows from the surrounding land run onto the roads. In many cases this flooding is temporary, and floodwater will recede once the storm has passed. Road users are advised to travel with care, and advised not to attempt to drive through flood water.

Sandbags

Whilst Shropshire Council is unable to deliver sandbags to properties during storm events, these are available for collection by the public from its highway depots. More information can be found here.

Prepare for flooding

More information on how you can prepare for flooding can be found on the Council website.

Report flooding

People can report flooding to Shropshire Council via its website or via the Fix My Street app. Any issues where there is an immediate risk to life should be reported to the emergency services by calling 999.