Gloucester Flooding Response' A few thoughts from a civilian

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Gloucester Flooding Response.A few thoughts from
a civilian!!

• Martin Kane, BSc, C.Eng, C.Env, MICE, MCIWEM,
  FIWO.
• Director of Customer Relations
• Severn Trent Water

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Agenda

• What happened in Gloucester?
• Timeline
• Response to maintain water supplies
• Recovery of the Water Treatment plant
• Recovery of service to customers
• Working in Gold Command
• Whats different for a Plc
• Our new resilience and response planning
• Q and A

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What happened?

• Unprecedented rainfall over Severn and Avon
  catchments
• River levels in Tewkesbury higher than ever seen
  before
• Utility infrastructure inundated
• Controlled shut down of Mythe WTW
• Water supplies switch to tankers, bowsers and
  bottled water
• Biggest Operation ever undertaken by a UK Utility
  Company (by some distance!!)

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Key Areas Affected
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Tewkesbury
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Transport Infrastructure(A40)
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Walham (National Grid)
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Castlemead, (Central Networks)
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Mythe WTW, (STW)
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Mythe WTW
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Operation Outlook Instigated

• Chief Constable Gold Team
• Strategic Intentions
• Preserve life
• Provide for the safety and reassurance of the
  public
• Minimise damage to property
• Minimise disruption and alleviate distress
• Restore normality

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Alternative supplies - bowsers

• Distribution hub at Staverton Airport
• More than 150 tankers operating at any single
  point in time
• Around 1,500 bowsers mobilised
• Largest number ever used in a single incident in
  the UK
• Bowsers on loan from other companies
• Initial problems in meeting high demand
• Average three fills a day

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Alternative supplies - bowsers
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24 Hour Team,Staverton Airfieldtanker and bowser
operation
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Alternative suppliesbottled water hub
Cheltenham Racecourse
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Alternative supplies bottled water local
distribution site

• 15 local distribution centres
• 150,000 litres given out 23 July
• 3 million litres a day available by end 24 July
• Bottled water stocks maintained to meet demand

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Time Line

• Friday 20 July
• Unprecedented levels of rainfall.
• Major incident declared and Gold formed under
  Police co-ordination (STW not involved at this
  stage)
• STW issues emergency weather warning to works
  managers, triggering the normal operational
  response
• Sewage incident room opened to manage and respond
  to flooding
• Over 300 Sewage Pumping Station wet well alarms
  received in Gloucestershire
• Saturday 21 July
• Flooding throughout Gloucestershire
• EA predictions suggest Mythe will not flood
• However, flood preparations at Mythe as river
  levels rise

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Time Line

• Sunday 22 July
• Mythe WTW flooded controlled shutdown commences
  (0145hrs) and site evacuated (0600hrs)
• Tankering and sourcing/deployment of bowsers
  commences, together with preparations for return
  to site
• Customer website fails returned to service in
  the evening
• Walham and Castlemead electricity stations also
  under threat
• STW join Gold Command
• Monday 23 July
• 70,000 properties without mains water - a further
  70,000 properties under threat
• 250 bowsers deployed
• 150,000 litres of bottled water distributed via
  Tescos and Sainsburys
• 23 Sewage Pumping Stations not working due to
  power failure or flooding
• Castlemead power sub station fails.

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Time Line

• Tuesday 24 July
• 140,000 properties without water
• Flood levels receding partial access to Mythe
  regained
• 400 bowsers deployed
• 3 million bottles of water sourced per day for
  deployment
• 27 Sewage Pumping Stations not working due to
  power failure or flooding
• Walham stable and cautiously optimistic
• Castlemead Power sub station restored
• Wednesday 25 July
• Full access to Mythe regained - restoration work
  commences
• 900 bowsers deployed
• 4 million litres of bottled water sourced per day
  for deployment
• 21 Sewage Pumping Stations and 1 Sewage Treatment
  Works not working
• Chief Superintendent into STW HQ to assist with
  Command and Control
• Reinforcement of flood defences at Walham agreed
  through use of hesco bastions

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Time Line

• Thursday 26 July
• Mythe restorations continue
• 1,100 bowsers deployed
• Plan to refill bowsers 3 times per day
  introduced.
• More efficient way of deploying and refilling
  bowsers implemented (Hub and spoke approach)
• 2nd customer contact centre opened to deal with
  calls specific to the flooding
• Building of semi-permanent flood defence begins
  at Walham
• Friday 27 July
• Restoration of Mythe continues
• 10,000 properties in Tewkesbury brought back into
  supply using water supplied via Strensham (do
  not drink)
• 1,200 bowsers deployed, 200 damaged
• 5 million litres of bottled water sourced each
  day for deployment
• Early weather warnings for Saturday 28 July
• Work on semi permanent flood defences at Mythe
  commences
• 4 Sewage Pumping Stations not working

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Time Line

• Saturday 28 July
• Plant checks and repairs complete at Mythe
• Mythe starts pumping operations and commences
  filling service reservoirs
• Severe weather and flood warnings for area early
  evening and overnight
• 1,500 bowsers deployed, 300 damaged
• Bowser fill rate of 3 times per day being
  achieved
• Bottled water stocks maintained to meet demand
• Suspension of 65 hour working restrictions within
  STW
• STW donates 50,000 to Gloucestershire Flood
  Appeal
• Walham defence complete.
• Sunday 29 July
• Semi permanent flood defences at Mythe primarily
  complete (minor additional bolstering work
  required)
• Level of bowsers (net of damaged bowsers)
  maintained at approx. 1,200
• Refill rate of 3 times per day being achieved
• Bottled water stocks maintained to meet demand
• 3 Sewage Pumping Stations not working

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Mythe WTW
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Mythe WTW

• Semi-permanent barrier around Mythe built with
  Military support in place by 29 July,1km long
  built in c.24 hours.
• ( Would normally take 2 years to do a project
  like this!!)

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DISTRIBUTION RECOVERY STREAMWater System
Schematic
Flow started here on 28 July
Trunk Main
District Metered Area (DMA) (110nr)
(87km)
Main (1883km)
Treatment works
Valve
River
Service Reservoir
Approx 1300 Properties
(15)
DMA
Valve Meter
DMA
DMA
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Time Line

• Thursday 2 August
• All properties reconnected (do not drink) by
  0545hrs
• Water still available from bowsers and through
  bottled supplies
• Friday 3 August
• All areas given boil water notice
• Quality sampling programme ongoing to enable move
  to safe to drink
• Monday 6 August
• Full automatic control of Mythe WTW regained

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Time Line

• Tuesday 7 August
• Customers given safe to drink notice
• Wednesday 8 August
• STW says thanks to the community and announces
  3.5m donation to assist affected communities in
  recovering from the incident
• Cost of incident estimated at 25-35 million,
  offset by insurance of between 10-20 million
• 17-20 September
• Customer drop in events - Gloucestershire

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Gold CommandThe Daily Routine for STW

• 06.00 STW Chief Exec. led conference call
• Reviewed yesterday, detailed plan for today, view
  forward for emerging issues, prepare briefing
  paper
• 09.00 Brief Gold Command team
• Review plan following Gold input
• 11.00 COBRA teleconference
• 12.00 media briefing, live to air BBC News 24,
  SKY and local TV and radio.
• One off media interviews (c.150 in two weeks)
• 15.00 STW Conference call
• 16.00 Gold team review and re plan as necessary

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Observations around Gold Team

• STW arrived 2 days after most others
• As a Cat 2 responder we had not been involved
  with many emergency planning exercises, and had
  never been at the centre of one!!
• LRF was not known to us
• We did not know anybody from the other agencies,
  but they all seemed to know each other
• We did not know what was expected of us in terms
  of manpower, level of seniority and how this
  aligned with our own emergency response plans
• We had little understanding of the information
  requirements of Gold Command (or COBRA)
• We did not understand Silver at all at the
  beginning

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Differences between a PLc and others at Gold

• Duties of Directors eg. HS
• Disclosure rules to Stock exchange
• Corporate Governance
• Corporate Responsibility
• Relationships with all stakeholders and act with
  best interests of them in mind
• Ethical standards and behaviours
• Perception that we had unlimited amounts of cash
  and nobody else had any money!!

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The Corporate Responsibility Organisation Chart
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Health and Safety
Common Law duty to provide and maintain Safe
premises Safe plant and equipment Adequate
supervision Competent fellow workers.
Penalties for getting it wrong Magistrates
Court..fines to 20k and/or 6 months jail Crown
Court...fines unlimited and/or 2 years
jail Corporate killing up to life imprisonment

We have to have rigorous Policies and
Procedures and they have to be followed at all
times
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Management style

• Our day to day style is one of collaborative
  decision making where staff are encouraged to
  challenge the status quo
• Staff are empowered to develop solutions to
  problems and implement them
• Command and Control environments are alien to our
  staff and our Supply Chain

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We defined the relationship we want with our
Staff and Supply Chain

• Trust
• Firm but fair
• Adult to adult honest
• Environment to challenge
• Innovation and continuous improvement
• Healthy tension - positive not destructive
• Safer, better, faster
• Standardised and optimised

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to be the best water and waste water company in
the UK today and everyday
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Great people
Rules based but with freedom to act
Confident and appropriate decision making
Openness and honest in all our dealings
Constructive challenge
Adult to adult
Collaborative team working
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Severn Trent Water Services TeamEnhanced
Resilience and Contingency Planning
Sites assessed for Treatment resilience (all
works have latest treatment capability) Terrorist
threat (some have EKP status) Flood risk,
industry standard criteria, Electrical
resilience (but did not include loss due to flood
waters) New 3 Strand Strategy Elimination of
the risk by reinforcing the network and
duplication of pipelines. Mitigation of risk by
defending assets to a higher standard. Effective
management of unforeseen emergencies by rigorous
contingency planning.

• This is where we started.

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Resilience Strategy Our new approach post Mythe
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STRENSHAM WTW
EXISTING MAINS
PROPOSED 900mm MAIN ROUTE OPTIONS through
Tewkesbury
M50
Option 1 - 8.5m
Option 2 - 8m
Option 3 - 10.5m
Bredon
Total scheme c.25M 2.5yrs to commissioning
RAILWAY
River Severn
A38
River Avon
M5
MYTHE WTW
Ashchurch
A46
A438
Tewkesbury
Elimination of Risk- Asset Duplication
River Severn
A38
To Hewletts Res
To Churchdown Res
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Mitigation Immediate and longer term actions

• With help from Energyst - Site contingency plans
  in place at-
• 13 Water Treatment Works,
• 9 River Intakes,
• 8 Groundwater sites,
• 1 Distribution Booster Station
• With help from ABB/ power companies -
• Number of incomers, Auto Change Over, Primary Sub
  Stations, Clean Feeders, Fault Levels
• Emergency generator plans
• Temporary flood defence delivered at 4 critical
  sites.

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A new approach to Contingency Planning Area
alternative supplies requirements
management by 100 rezone
Mythe Incident 155,000 properties
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Rezoning Plans for every Water Treatment Plant
Bamford WTW Operational Overview detailing
normal operation of the network relating to
Bamford WTW.

• Bamford WTW What If
• detailing actions to be taken during loss of
  Bamford for 2 wks
• rezone management procedures, first 24 hours,
  Day 2 and . . . . Day 3 onwards
• last gasp changes
• risks
• supporting information

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With detailed network plans which include

• Network Schematics
• normal operation
• no Bamford WTW output.

• DMA Plans on GISST
• ready to go spatial information suitable for web

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And a new tool to model Alternative Supplies
deployment

• Refill schedules for each bowser
• x3 per day, site refill vs. swap
• by DMA, by driver
• development of driver routes for each bowser
• driver packs on shelf ready to go
• confirmation of refill (SMS)

• List of STW Fast Fill Tanker Locations

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And bowser deployment plans for each area

• Pre-planned bowser locations
• 1 bowser for every 330 people, 80 of the
  population should be within 300metres of bowser
  location
• Risk assessed agreed with stakeholders
• Safe and accessible for public
• Logistically accessible
• Activity plans in place
• chlorination, fill, primary movement
• Drawings of physical site set up.
• Management controls, traffic volume controls

• Detailed deployment schedule by DMA, by driver
• driver packs on shelf ready to go

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And bottled water distribution plans for each area

• Strategic storage locations and volumes
• Designated suppliers
• supplier database availability, flexible
  contracts secured, prices, exceptions
• Assessed hand out locations
• within 2.5 miles of every customer in an urban
  area and 10 miles of every customer in a rural
  area
• Inbound plan
• Time schedules (plan for no holding facility
  straight to customer distribution locations)
• Empty pallet control plan
• Site infrastructure plan
• Operators link with Local Authorities as
  distributors , Signs and barriers , Lighting ,
  Traffic control, Security
• Home delivery schedules

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A Few Thoughts Post Mythe,2007.

• Response plans have been developed for all
  identified critical Water Treatment sites.
• Interim flood defence measures have been
  installed at sites with a potential to flood.
• Network reinforcement schemes are being promoted
  to eliminate the risk due to single points of
  failure in our infrastructure.
• As a Cat. 2 responder we need to be included in a
  wider range of LRF activity to gain an
  understanding of how it works, and this is
  underway
• Early communication, we used the media well but
  customers wanted more from us directly.
• We provided sufficient water to maintain basic
  standard of living and hygiene to 350,000
  customers we are documenting this with the LRF
  for future events
• Emergency measures directive of 10 l/head needs
  review and should include 10l/head bottled water
  and 10l/hd bowser supply.
• Alternative supplies capability without mutual
  aid is unrealistic. We had assistance from many
  other water companies and our contractors
• We have provided a full Report and given evidence
  to the many public enquiries following the events
  in Gloucestershire. We would not wish others to
  have to endure what we and our customers went
  through last year