Posts Tagged: floods

Engineers from a Midlands business have been praised for their efforts in helping flood victims return to their homes following the recent storms.

Since the start of December right through to the end of January, thousands of homes and businesses have been ruined in the north of England and Scotland by five different storms – known as Desmond, Eva, Frank, Gertrude and Henry.

Over 10 engineers from national maintenance firm Diamond Facilities Support (DFS), whose headquarters are on Coleshill Industrial Estate, have visited various affected towns to perform the vital task of restoring electricity to hundreds of homes.

At the turn of the New Year, engineer Scott Gall did a significant round trip every day for two weeks to help the Scottish residents of Ballater, which had been submerged in up to seven feet of water.

Scott said: “I would leave my home in Blairgowrie at 5am and not return until 11pm in minus conditions, but none of that mattered to me, my main priority was to do everything within my power to help people return to their homes.

“On my first day I arrived to a sea of devastation and it really wasn’t nice to behold. By the time I got there a lot of the water had subsided but you could see on the houses where the water had got up to.

“We spent the two weeks restoring electricity to around 50 homes. This involved installing temporary electricity boards to enable the dehumidifiers to go in and dry the houses out, and making sure the electricity supply is safe.”

 

Scott Gall

There were similar scenes in Kendal and Halifax where Garry Butterfield was part of a team that spent a week away from his family replicating the same job.

Garry, from Leeds, added: “Seeing the devastation on people’s faces was more than enough motivation to keep going.”

“I had only been with the business for two weeks when the storms struck so I had to learn the ropes pretty quickly, but in my opinion I was just doing my job.”

Adam Atkins, director of DFS, paid tribute to his staff who had been working flat out amid difficult circumstances.

Adam said: “I’m extremely proud of the work carried out by our team in such difficult circumstances.

“During January we took over 1,000 calls from people needing help with electrical work following the devastation caused by the floods, and despite the huge workload lined up, each and every one of them has maintained a great degree of care.”

DFS is also a facilities management company, and in 2015, turned over £5.7 million. High profile clients include JD Sports, Bill’s Restaurants, Atkins Global and The Range, and have recently re-secured a multi-million pound contract with Pure Gym.