Unprecedented demand on emergency support services during Storm Darragh

On Saturday, at the height of Storm Darragh in Warwickshire, our control room fielded more calls than on any News Year’s Eve for the past ten years.

In total, we received 671 calls on Saturday, and Sunday was also saw a high volume of calls as us and our partners mopped up after the storm.

This, coupled with an ongoing search for missing person John in Kenilworth, meant that we have all seen an extremely busy weekend.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for acting on our safety messages about travel and inaccessible roads, and an even bigger thank you to everyone who offered their help to remove fallen trees and to assist with the search for John.

Thanks also to all of our call handlers for working extremely hard on long shifts to ensure that every call that came in received an appropriate response.

It was all greatly appreciated, both by us, our communities, and our partner agencies: 

Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service, West Midlands Ambulance Services, Warwickshire County Council, Nuneaton & Bedworth Borough Council, North Warwickshire Borough Council Rugby Borough Council, Warwick District Council and Stratford-on-Avon District Council, National Highways: West Midlands and the Environment Agency.