Incident

Storm Aurore - Incidents round-up

Following a Met Office amber weather warning, our teams dealt with over 100 weather related incidents last night and into the early hours of this morning.

Many of the calls have required our attendance to lead passengers to safety after their vehicles became stuck in deep water. We also attended several incidents of internal flooding, particularly in homes in the south of the county. Our control team have worked hard to provide advice to many members of the public who called to report flooding outside of their homes.

We have worked throughout the night, in partnership with Essex Police, UK Power Network, Highways Agency, Anglian Water, local authorities and the Environment Agency.

ECFRS's Service Delivery Command Manager, James Taylor, said:

“Our control team were inundated with calls from around 10:30pm, and have worked tirelessly through the night to offer advice to the local community. Crews have been deployed to numerous incidents and have worked hard under challenging circumstances – not only the nature of the incidents they’ve attended, but just getting to the scenes in adverse weather conditions has been a challenge.

“Canvey Island saw a large amount of flooding, but thanks to our detailed risk information plan, we were able to work quickly and efficiently with our partners to ease flooding.

“A huge ‘well done’ to our control team and our crews, particularly those in the south of Essex where we saw high volumes of incidents!”

A selection of the incidents of note will be added below.

154711 - Benfleet pumping from several houses
11:06pm | Firefighters divert floodwater away from houses in Benfleet
Firefighters from Basildon and Maldon used pumps to divert water away from a number of houses in Oakfield Road, Benfleet.

154728 - Rescue from car, Wickford
11:20PM | Firefighters rescue man from floodwater in Wickford
On-call firefighters from Wickford Fire Station rescued a man who was trapped in his car in two feet of floodwater on Southend Road, Wickford.

154731 - Internal flood, Benfleet
11:28pm | Firefighters prevent floodwater from entering house in Benfleet
Southend firefighters used a poly boom - which acts as a wall to divert water away from an area - at a house in The Oaks, Benfleet after water was flooding into the house.

154746 - Canvey water pump, flood activation
12:07am | Floodwater pumped in Canvey
Crews from Canvey Island and Southend spent three and a half hours working with the Environment Agency in Sommes Avenue, Canvey Island using pumps to divert floodwater.

154784 – Internal Flooding, Grays
01:31am | Floowater pumped in Grays
Crews from Grays spent almost two hours pumping water from multiple properties in Grays, using pumps to divert floodwater to a nerby drain.

154809 – Internal Flooding, Rochford
03:11am | Property made safe in Rochford
Crews from Southend assisted a man to isolate his electrics after he was unable to access the fuse box due to internal flooding.

154811 – Internal Flooding, Southend
03:32am | Floodwater pumped in Southend
Crews from Leigh spent an hour pumping floodwater out of a property in Southend after internal flooding affected electrics.

154825 – Rescue from car, Rayleigh
05:55am | Firefighters rescue 2 people from vehicle
Crews from Rayleigh Weir led two passengers to safety after their vehicle became stuck in water on Watery Lane, Rayleigh. Following this incident, Highways shut the lane to prevent further incidents.

154828 – Burst riverbank, Rawreth

06:47am | Floodwater diverted away from house

On-call firefighters from Wickford Fire Station worked to divert water away from houses in Rawreth after the River Crouch burst its banks. Crews used pumps and hoses to divert the water away from the houses.

With winter approaching, we’re urging people to follow our safety advice when flooding occurs: