Flood defences “served their purpose” and kept properties in Manchester dry overnight after hundreds of residents were told to leave their homes because of Storm Christoph.
Almost 200 flood warnings remained in place across England on Thursday morning, with four “severe” warnings – meaning danger to life – issued for the North West.
Residents in East Didsbury, West Didsbury and Northenden areas of Greater Manchester were told to leave their homes on Wednesday night because of rising water levels, the city council said.
People were also asked to leave their homes in parts of Ruthin and Bangor-on-Dee in North Wales and Maghull in Merseyside amid flood warnings.
But Lee Rawlinson, of the Environment Agency, said that flood basins put in place on the River Mersey in Didsbury had kept properties in the area dry overnight.
“At Didsbury, the River Mersey got to very high levels very quickly, the water was pouring through there,” he told BBC Breakfast on Thursday.
“What we did as an organisation, we have a couple of flood basins that we employed there, that they took the water away. It took the peak of the water off.
“The top of the river came within centimetres of the top of the river bank but our defences there have served their purpose and kept those properties dry.
“But it was very close.”
Following heavy rain and snow, Greater Manchester Police warned of the risk of “treacherous ice” on the roads and urged drivers to be cautious and only travel if essential.
In the early hours of the morning, North Wales Police began evacuating residents from their homes in Bangor-on-Dee after a severe flood warning was issued for the village by Natural Resources Wales.
“We continue to ask everyone to attend Ysgol Sant Dunawd as soon as possible,” the force said on Twitter.
“Please do not try to leave the area yourself due to the road conditions.”
Residents in Maghull were also advised to leave their properties after a severe flood warning was issued due to “unprecedented” water levels at Dover Brook near the River Alt, Sefton Council said.
But as rain overnight was not as heavy as predicted, this was replaced with a flood warning on Thursday, according to the council.
The Environment Agency said that while this was “good news”, it expected water levels to remain high throughout the day with flooding to properties still possible.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here