What should I do when a flood warning is issued for my area?

The UK warning system has three levels. A flood alert means flooding is possible and it is time to prepare. A flood warning means flooding is expected and you should act now. A severe flood warning means danger to life. Floodline on 0345 988 1188 covers England, Wales and Scotland, and Northern Ireland uses the Flooding Incident Line on 0300 2000 100. Most of what saves a household is done in the hours between the warning and the water, and almost none of it can be done once the water is there.

Safety

What you'll need

• A flood plan written down, with phone numbers
• Flood boards or barriers, airbrick covers and drain bungs (optional)
• Knowledge of where the gas, electricity and water shut-offs are
• A grab bag: medicines, documents, chargers, glasses, cash, spare clothes
• Somewhere to go, and someone who knows you are going there
• Wellingtons and gloves for after, not during

Step by step

1. Sign up for warnings first, before any of this matters.Flood warnings by text, phone or email are free from the Environment Agency, SEPA, Natural Resources Wales or the NI Flooding Incident Line. Everything on this page depends on knowing early.
2. Move people and animals first.Anyone elderly, unwell, disabled or very young leaves early rather than late, and pets go with them. Nobody should be trying to move a person once water is coming in.
3. Take the irreplaceable things upstairs.Documents, photographs, medicines, computers and hard drives, sentimental items. If there is no upstairs, get them into the car or to a neighbour on higher ground.
4. Turn off the gas, electricity and water at the mains.Before the water arrives, while you can still see the consumer unit and reach the meter. Never touch the consumer unit once water is near it. If you smell gas at any point, ring 0800 111 999 — 0800 002 001 in Northern Ireland — and do not operate any switch.
5. Fit barriers to every low opening, not just the front door.Every external door including the back and patio doors, airbrick covers, cellar light wells, and mastic or expanding sealant round the ducts where services pass through the wall. One unprotected opening undoes all the others.
6. Deal with the drains as well as the doors.When the sewer surcharges, water comes up through toilets, showers and ground floor sinks. Non-return valves are the proper answer; inflatable bungs and a weighted plug are the emergency one.
7. Lift and unplug what you can, and roll up rugs.Put furniture on blocks, lift the ends of curtains, take up rugs, move garden furniture and bins inside or tie them down so they do not float off and cause damage elsewhere.
8. Move the car to higher ground early.Well before the roads flood, not when the water arrives. Cars written off in floods are overwhelmingly moved too late or driven through water that turned out to be deeper than it looked.
9. Do not stack sandbags and think you are done.Sandbags leak badly. They need a plastic sheet laid under and up the face to do anything, and even then they are the least effective option. Purpose-made barriers work far better for the same money over two floods.
10. Never try to hold back more than about a metre of water.Above that the pressure difference can push a wall in or lift a floor. At that depth the aim changes from keeping water out to getting people out and letting the water through evenly.
11. Go when you are told to go.A severe flood warning or an instruction from the emergency services means leave immediately, by the route given, with the grab bag. Tell someone outside the area where you are going.

Tips

• Check your property's flood risk on the government's flood map now, not during a warning. Surface water flooding affects far more homes than rivers do and catches people who have never considered themselves at risk.
• Write the flood plan down — shut-off locations, insurer's emergency number, where the barriers are stored, who collects whom, where you go. Nobody thinks clearly at two in the morning.
• Keep barriers and airbrick covers where they can be reached without going outside in the rain, and practise fitting them once in the dry. Most take longer the first time than people expect.
• Property flood resilience grants are available in some areas after a flood, and some insurers contribute towards resilient reinstatement. Ask, because it is rarely offered.
• Photograph the house and its contents while everything is dry and intact. It makes any later claim far easier and takes twenty minutes.

Common mistakes

• Driving through floodwater — It is the single most common cause of flood deaths in the UK. Thirty centimetres floats a car, the road under the water may be gone, and moving water carries a vehicle sideways within seconds.
• Leaving the electricity on so you can see — Once water reaches a socket, a cable or the consumer unit, the installation is lethal and cannot be switched off safely. Turn it off while it is dry and use torches.
• Protecting the front door and ignoring the airbricks — Water finds every opening at once. Airbricks, cellar lights, service ducts and back doors let in as much as a front door does, and a partly protected house floods almost as fast as an unprotected one.
• Going back for something — Floodwater rises faster than people expect and the route back is often gone. Nothing in a house is worth a return trip through water.

If it doesn't work

Questions people ask