Flood help and advice

• Create a personal flood plan for your home
• If you own a business create a business flood plan. Free advice and support is available from the Suffolk & Norfolk Business Efficient Resilience Toolkit.
• If you need to create a flood plan for a community group or a school, hospital or residential care home read GOV.UK's Flood plan guidance for community groups
• Visit GOV.UK for more advice about protecting your property from flooding

You can contact your local emergency planning department for more information on developing a Community Emergency Plan and to put you in touch with community groups working in your area concerned with flooding:

• Borough Council of Kings Lynn & West Norfolk
• Great Yarmouth Borough Council
• Broadland District Council
• Norwich City Council
• South Norfolk Council
• North Norfolk District Council

Report flooding

Find out who to contact about different types of flooding:

Report a flood

Advice during a flood 

• What to do if you’re about to be flooded - National Flood Forum
• Get help during a flood - GOV.UK

Help us prevent future floods

Surface water flooding happens after sudden and heavy rainfall and appears very quickly.  If we collect evidence as the flooding happens our investigation team will be able to identify the cause of the flooding more quickly and suggest ways to prevent it happening again.  

You can help us by photographing or videoing the flooding as it happens.

Try to show where the water is coming from, the direction of its flow and the full extent of where it accumulates.  If the water enters a property, or comes into contact with entrance defences (like sandbags) show us images of this, or the damage and evidence of the water's presence after the event.

Remember: fast moving or deep water is extremely dangerous.  Do not under any circumstances put yourself in an unsafe situation in order to take images and film.

You can email your images and film to water.management@norfolk.gov.uk or if more convenient to you, upload to our Facebook page, send us a link from your YouTube account or tweet us @NorfolkFlooding.

Read our guidelines for contacting us on social media

Visit GOV.UK for more advice on what to do after a flood.

If the flooding has been contaminated by sewage, contact Anglian Water for further advice and assistance.

• Do not risk walking or driving through flood water as it can conceal its true depth and contain hidden dangers such as uncovered manhole covers or sewage. Just 30cm of flowing flood water is enough to move a car and less than that could knock you off your feet. In built up areas the waves created by vehicle movements can cause internal flooding damage to peoples' homes
• Be careful when crossing a river at a ford
• If you’re caught in a flood, do not eat food that has come into contact with floodwater
• If you have a long term health condition, think about your medication needs over the next 72 hours. Ensure you have enough medication to see you through 72 hours and remember to take your medication with you if you are evacuated
• Do not let young children play in floodwater and try to avoid coming into contact with floodwater
• If you do come into contact with floodwater, wash your hands using clean water and soap and be aware of young children putting their hands in their mouths
• Check up on elderly and vulnerable friends, family and neighbours in affected areas, ask about their welfare and offer assistance when possible

More information

Public Health England has more advice about flood health risks and cleaning up safely.

Advice given by the Animal and Plant Health Agency states that any Norfolk livestock keeper who has animals at risk from floodwater but unable to move due to standstill measures can move those animals to a safer location.

Following this action livestock keepers will need to phone the Animal Health Regional Office on 01284 778150 to apply for a retrospective movement licence via the duty vet.

Where possible animals should be moved to a piece of land where there are no other animals. The piece of land the animals are moved to will be subject to standstill measures from the time they arrive. 

If you have suffered flood damage to your house, garden or business premises, Trading Standards advise you to be wary of approaches from rogue traders. You could be left with shoddy workmanship, end up out of pocket, or even find problems are made worse.

Here are some simple steps to take to ensure that repairs are successful:

• Before you organise any repairs, contact your insurance company. Some insurance companies may arrange approved traders to repair damage on your behalf, but if you organise your own repairs, check what will be covered.
• Avoid any cold callers that may turn up offering to carry out repairs
• We always advise to use known reputable traders you have chosen yourself, or a member of the Norfolk County Council Trusted Trader scheme, who have all been checked by Trading Standards. You can find a Norfolk Trusted Trader on our website.
• Ask traders to provide you with written contact details, and consider getting written quotes (not estimates) from at least three traders where possible
• Keep back part of the cost until the repair job has been satisfactorily completed. This will provide an incentive for the trader to complete the job or put right any problems.

If you are aware of people cold calling at properties offering to do repairs you could email the police to report it or visit the Norfolk Constabulary website to find out more.

If you need further advice contact our partners the Citizens Advice consumer service on 03454 04 05 06.