This morning in Romford the Brigade rescued 50 residents from flooded homes in Penn Gardens including a pregnant lady and her child. Another 60 people were rescued from nearby Frinton Road. The waters are now receding and as of 1400 hours we have just two fire engines at the scene as crews continue to help remove the remaining water from a handful of properties.
Station Manager Rodney Vitalis who was at the scene said.
“Crews were on hand to pump away water and used inflatable rafts to help people who had to leave their properties.
"We are expecting more heavy rainfall later today and so possibly more localised flooding. However, we are working very closely with other agencies to protect people and property.
The Brigade’s 999 control officers took over 550 weather related emergency calls and firefighters attended over 400 incidents between 0130 and 0630 this morning as heavy rain and thunder storms hit the capital overnight.
Firefighters were attending flooding incidents throughout this morning and although affecting the whole of London, the worst hit areas were in the east, particularly, Havering, Barking and Dagenham, Bexley, Greenwich, and Lewisham
A London Fire Brigade spokesperson said:
“Our control staff and firefighters worked tirelessly through the night and into this morning to deal with the huge volume of 999 calls that we received.
“The high volume of weather related emergency calls we had between 0130 and 0630 this morning was nearly twice the total number of all 999 calls that our control officers deal with in a normal day.”
Incidents attended by our crews included flooded commercial and domestic properties, flooded roads, and vehicles trapped by flood water. Firefighters also attended a number of calls to reports of property being struck by lightning. Thankfully there were no reports of serious injuries.
Control officers continued to be busy throughout the whole of Thursday and between 0800 and 2100 took 417 further 999 calls to flooding incidents.
At the height of the floods this morning, five fire engines, four fire rescue units and 50 firefighters and officers were tackling the flood waters in Romford after the River Rom burst its banks. Station Manager Rod Vitalis said:
“Around 60 homes were affected either side of Lodge Lane on Penn Gardens and Frinton Road. They were flooded to a depth of about one metre and we used rescue boats to get people safely out of their properties if they wanted to leave them to go to work or out to vote. We also pumped away water and used sand bags to try and prevent more homes from flooding where we could.
“Crews worked throughout the day and we liaised closely with our partner agencies to deal with the incident.”