NI Water preparation for amber wind warning Monday 16 October 2017

16 October 2017 11:31

The Met Office has issued a series of weather warnings for strong winds for tomorrow and Tuesday, including an amber wind warning for Northern Ireland for Monday as ex-Hurricane Ophelia passes through.

Northern Ireland Water has been fully engaged in the development of a multi-agency response:

• Operational teams have been placed on standby to provide an immediate response in the event of difficulties with the water and sewerage assets in affected areas. Incident Management teams will be in place to monitor the ongoing situation and deploy resources on the ground as necessary.

• The most up-to-date information on areas experiencing disruption will be found on our website www.niwater.com.  This includes a full postcode search facility for customers. 

• The Customer Relations Centre is available to customers on a 24 hours a day / 365 days a year through Waterline 03457 440088.

Customers should be aware, however, that there may be some disruption to normal services, i.e. it may take us longer to respond to blocked sewers etc.  During this period, our priority will be protecting our assets and mitigating the impact of the storm as far as possible. 

It is important members of the public take care to protect themselves and their property from the effects of the strong winds. It is also likely that there will be some disruption to traffic and travel. For information on traffic and travel go to www.trafficwatchni.com  

More detailed information on keeping safe and useful contact numbers is available on the nidirect.gov.uk website at: https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/news/strong-winds-warning-power-and-travel-advice

The public are reminded to monitor the Met Office forecasts for their area and to be aware of the weather conditions and to heed safety warnings.

ENDS

All media enquiries to NI Water Press Office on email press.office@niwater.com

Notes to Editors:

The NI Water response plan covers a range of measures which NI Water will implement:

• The NI Water Telemetry Units deal with out-of-hours emergency calls on dedicated hot-lines for the emergency services and other utility organisations;

• Operational staff are placed on high alert and respond urgently to alarms;

• A ‘call-out’ system is available for supervisors to deploy operational teams (generally first-line managers and industrial staff) to instigate urgent repairs outside normal working hours;

• The emergency response is supported by a Duty Officer Rota and upward reporting system; this provides formal standby arrangements that guarantee 24 hour senior management emergency contact throughout the year.