Flooding in Scotland interrupts roads and rails

• Flood warnings have been issued for parts of southern and central Scotland.
• Parts of the M9 and M74 are closed, and a number of train services cancelled.
• Sepa has issued 27 flood warnings and 10 flood alerts.

As a result of extensive heavy rainfall, flooding has caused disruptions to transportation throughout Scotland.

Sections of the M9 and the M74 highways are closed, and a number of train services have been cancelled.

Flood warnings have been issued by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) across the southern and central regions.

As river levels rise, there are worries that floods could affect villages in southern Scotland, resulting in a “potentially significant” occurrence.

For Dumfries and Galloway and the Borders, a Met Office amber notice had been issued, predicting 40 to 50 millimeters of rain on Friday.

Although that warning is no longer in effect, Friday night is predicted to be when river levels will be at their highest.

According to Vincent Fitzsimons, Sepa’s flood duty manager, there are 27 flood warnings and 10 flood alerts in effect, and certain locations are causing worry.

“We are already seeing impacts to transport and to agricultural land, but the rivers are rising rapidly in response to that intense rain and should be peaking any time from now into the early evening,” he said.

“Those peaks could be significant in the southern part of the country.

“We are keeping a particular close eye on communities in Dumfries and Galloway and the Borders area – communities like Dumfries, Hawick, Peebles and Newton Stewart – but we are also monitoring further north into the Clyde Valley and Kelvin Valley and the Water of Leith.”

According to him, a sizable portion of southern and central Scotland is at risk of flooding, and as river levels rise, community-scale flooding that affects homes and riverside towns may develop.

He said: “This is potentially a significant event. What we are worried about is the intensity of the rainfall in a short period of time.”

Supt John Cairns said that police and the local resilience partnership were monitoring incidents of flooding and concerns over properties.

He said that people should not travel unless absolutely necessary.

“The multi-agency response will be focused on additional flooding from water courses and rivers making their way to areas such as Whitesands, Newton Stewart and Langholm,” he said.

“We are aware of concerns in towns and villages across the region. No properties have been flooded but mitigation measures have been taken.”

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