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Hebrides  News

Shop owners use sandbags against flooding risk              3/1/14

 

Police and coastguard teams will be guarding causeways and vulnerable coastal roads against the threat of flooding at high tide tonight and tomorrow morning.

 

Some roadways were shut this morning and North Beach Street and Bayhead in Stornoway were flooded due to a tidal surge.

 

No specific advance warning was flagged up by the authorities though the high tide and strong winds coincided.

 

Tonight, island architect Dr Gordon Anderson was using sandbags to barricade his premises against a repeat incident.

 

Western Isles Council delivered a pallet of sandbags to business owners on Nouth Beach Street in the centre of Stornoway which was covered in water this morning.

 

The tidal surge - said to be a foot and a half normal than predicted - flowed up drains into the main road through the town.

 

Swollen by heavy rain, the water had nowhere to go until the tide receded.

 

Mr Anderson said his office and neighbouring shop were vulnerable to tidal flooding.

 

He said: “I want to protect them. There’s a lot of stock in which we don’t want damaged.

 

“The risk is from the tide coming up, crossing the road and coming into one of these doorways flooding the whole building.”