Extensive rainfall in Somerset causes significant impacts

Severe rainfall in Somerset, which forced over 100 home evacuations, caused transport delays, and closed schools, was worsened by already saturated ground and the region's terrain.

Somerset Council and Avon and Somerset police jointly declared a major incident in the area. A council spokesperson said: “Following intense rainfall across the region at the weekend, several parts of Somerset were flooded, including roads and some homes in the centre of Chard and Ilminster. 

“With further heavy rainfall expected, a major incident was called, and a decision was made to carry out precautionary evacuations for residents living in properties in the worst-affected areas.” 

A resident, who lives in Chard, said her street looked "like a river" on Sunday. "I haven't seen it this bad and I've lived here for nearly 30 years," she said. 

The severe weather has caused chaos throughout the county, causing a landslide in the village of Barrington. 

Care home residents at Burnworthy House in South Petherton had to be moved when the ground floor flooded. Staff said residents are now "safe, warm and dry" after "unprecedented flooding" on the ground floor. 

Previsico undertook some post event testing to understand the different data inputs in further detail to see what factors contributed to the flooding event.  

“By integrating multiple data sources and running an Instacast model of the Chard area, we were able to accurately identify flooding. By utilising information around topography, land use, and drainage infrastructure we can see how in Somerset, intense rainfall, saturated ground, and overwhelmed drainage systems exacerbated this particular flooding event.” Vivian Camacho-Suarez, Flood Modelling Manager at Previsico.