Local firefighters have been praised for their ‘sterling efforts and commitment’ in preparing for the coronavirus pandemic at the same time as dealing with flooding across the region.

Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service chief officer Nathan Travis told a meeting this week that as flooding started to recede across the two counties, officers were already working on the response to Covid-19.

He said the service has been instrumental in delivering personal protective equipment for social care settings to local authorities.

Firefighters helped train people in the use of PPE and crews were prepared to transport bodies in the event of a surge of deaths.

However, Mr Travis said good planning by local authorities had prevented such a scenario unfolding.

“Overall, it has been a busy organisational and operational period since the beginning of the year,” he said during the fire authority meeting.

“I would like to commend the work and commitment of the crews who have taken it in their stride and dealt with it very professionally.

“We had the major three storms in the February period running through into March, Ciara, Dennis and Jorge.

“We had significant flooding across the two counties and across our neighbouring fire and rescue services.

“Obviously, areas such as the Wye, the Severn, the Teme and the Lugg were inundated.

“When they burst their banks, they deluged a number of our communities particularly, Hereford, Worcester, but also Tenbury, Upton, Whitchurch, Hampton Bishop and Bewdley in particular.

“The response from the service I believe was absolutely fantastic. All stations were involved in the response over that period.”

Firefighters rescued a total of 130 people during the floods. They responded to 182 water incidents and at the peak of the flooding on February 16 the service was called out 115 times.

A total of 127 homes were flooded across the two counties and 50 cars were stranded.

“Unfortunately, there was also the one fatality in Tenbury when a couple tried to access across the bridge when their car was stranded and they got swept into the river,” Mr Travis added.

“The sterling efforts from the crew that actually went into the river on tethered lines to rescue both of them and were able to rescue one of the individuals.

“As we came towards the end of the flooding event, the multiagency senior coordinating group which was at the Operational Communications Centre at Hindlip already started to pick up on the Covid pandemic.

“For a brief period, we were dealing with the two as one started to recede and the other started to escalate.

“We are coming to the latter stages of at least the first phase of the Covid pandemic but the work that has gone on not only to be able to make sure the organisation is running effectively but also the ability to be able to adequately support our partners across the two counties.

“We have been instrumental in delivering PPE that has been delivered centrally to Hindlip across to the local authorities for the use in social care context.

“Thankfully we haven’t needed this function yet but we scaled up to be able to assist the local authorities in movement of bodies as well if we got to that stage.

“But thankfully the planning and the work that has gone in from all of the agencies has meant that that hasn’t been the case.”

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