Community braced for flooding as river levels rise

A street in Hereford is once again bracing for floods, as water levels on the River Wye are predicted to rise further on Sunday.

The water is expected to reach its peak over the afternoon, following intense rainfall in the Welsh Hills, according to the Environment Agency (EA).

Although the river levels are already high – and rising – they are not expected to surpass the highest recorded levels from February 2020.

"We're expecting a reasonably large flood," said Colin Taylor, who is a local flood warden and resident on Greyfriars Avenue. "We're all prepared, and just waiting for it to come and go."

He said it was originally predicted that the water levels would peak at 03:00 GMT which had meant an anxious wait overnight.

"We're not too happy about the EA's prediction at the moment – it's so important to us, the predictions are so important to us, to get them right.

"Most of us have been up all night waiting for this 3 o'clock which never happened – so we've got a lot of bleary eyed people in the avenue at the moment."

He added that flood defences had been installed around the houses, and therefore it was hoped that the flood water would not enter people's homes, but they would be surrounded by water.

"All the flood wardens are all prepared, and we're just waiting for it to peak and then for it to drop."

In October 2019, the riverbank overtopped, causing flooding at Greyfriars.

Following Storm Dennis in February 2020 the highest ever river level of 6.11m was recorded at Wye Bridge river gauge.

Flooding in some properties was a metre deep, and the level was 11cm higher than the estimate of the historic 1795 flood.

The Greyfriars area was again affected in January 2021.

Following Storm Darragh, this weekend's river levels are expected to reach 17.3ft (5.3m) at the Old Wye Bridge gauge on Sunday.

"It is much lower than 2020 but the river is rising rather fast at the moment," Mr Taylor said.

He said he believed river levels should then return to a more normal state by the end of Monday.

In March, the EA said consultants had examined the flood risk in the Greyfriars community, and that a project team were working on a business case to assess the options available.

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