When the weather is at its worst, it usually keeps getting worse before it gets better. If you are a UK office worker, or own an office in the UK, then flooding in the workplace can be a catastrophe. This article lists some of the many dangers and scenarios that can happen to make your time at the office during a flood, unbearable.

Warehouse Floods

Warehouses are great places to store things inside. They are not however, built with floods in mind. Quite often they are made out of scrap metal and leftovers in an attempt for the owner to be able to rent out the space, for as much profit, with the least cost possible. It can be devastating to own a warehouse and suddenly step into your once gold mine workspace, and find that your customer’s items are quite literally swimming around within the foundations of what once used to make you a living. Workers in warehouses are at great risk when having to clean up the mess that is caused by flooding, because many of the packages that are sitting inside have been there for years, and water helps to un-lodge them from the shelves and storage space, unleashing the contents within. Quite often this can be sharp objects, which when floating around in water, or sunken to the bottom of a flood, are unseen until they have caused an unnecessary accident. Usually to one of the workers at the warehouse that had been employed to help out.

Office Floods

Office floods can be devastating. Many offices are run with a not so modern environment. Paperwork and filing cases are left lying around, and many of the old documentation inside the office will not have been backed up onto computer databases.  It of course, depends on how old the office is, and just how current the owners are with technology. In cases where the office is modernised, of course computers and disks, etc., are significantly damaged. Memory sticks seem to walk, or float, and what once was an organised desk, can quite literally turn into a remnant of a floating duck! This is terrible because client contacts are lost, receipts and contracts get soggy, also injuries such as electric shocks and other complications like slipping down stairs, are more common. It is not the ideal situation to be in.

Places Where Trucks and Equipment Are Used

The use of trucks like forklift trucks in the workplace, particularly in large warehouses and compounds is very common now. The machinery is used to cart around heavier items that workers shouldn’t really risk carrying around, for the weight would damage their back. When the water seeps into a depot where trucks and machinery are used, it is quite literally mass destruction at its worst. The risks of an employee having their limbs chopped off, slipping on surfaces, and generally get injured is very high. When water enters places where machinery and heavy equipment can be found, it can be devastating, potentially life threatening.

Flooding in UK workplaces can have a horrible knock on effect, and the consequences for those that work in places that are affected, or of course for those that own the company where workers are hit by the devastation brought alongside the flooding, can be life changing. Both with credibility, and of course financially too. Also check here for information on emergency and floods in the workplace www.hse.gov.uk/toolbox/managing/emergency.htm.