A flood warning means flooding is expected and you should act now — not later, not once you can see water. It sits between a flood alert ("be prepared") and a severe flood warning ("danger to life") in the Environment Agency's three-level system. If you have just received one, the next few hours matter more than the next few days.

Order of priority: people, pets and medicines first; important documents and irreplaceable items second; furniture and everything else last. Property can be replaced — spend your time on what can't.

First: understand what you've been told

The Environment Agency (in England) issues three levels of message, and they mean different things:

  • Flood alert — flooding is possible. Be prepared, keep an eye on updates.
  • Flood warning — flooding is expected. Act now: this article.
  • Severe flood warning — there is danger to life. Follow the advice of the emergency services, and be ready to leave.

These are separate from Met Office weather warnings, which describe the rain that's forecast rather than the flooding it may cause. A yellow rain warning is not a flood warning — but the two often arrive together. In Scotland the equivalent messages come from SEPA, and in Wales from Natural Resources Wales.

You can see every warning currently in force on FloodRadar's live warnings map, or check gov.uk's flood service for your postcode.

The first hour: people, pets, medicines

Start with the things that can't be replaced or re-bought.

  1. Check on everyone in the household — and on neighbours who may need help: older people, anyone with mobility problems, families with very young children.
  2. Gather medicines and medical equipment. Prescriptions, inhalers, insulin, hearing-aid batteries, glasses. If someone relies on powered medical equipment, plan now for a power cut.
  3. Secure pets. Bring them indoors, get carriers ready, and keep leads and food where you can grab them.
  4. Charge phones and power banks while you still have mains power.
  5. Put documents somewhere high and dry — passports, insurance policies, bank details — ideally in a sealed bag. Photographing them on your phone is a good backup.

If you have a flood kit already packed, get it out now. If you don't, improvise one: water, snacks, torch, chargers, warm clothes, and copies of key documents.

Next: move what you can upstairs

Work from most valuable and least replaceable downwards. Move items upstairs, or as high as you can on sturdy furniture if you live in a bungalow or flat.

  • Irreplaceable items first: photos, hard drives, sentimental possessions.
  • Electronics and anything with a plug.
  • Rugs, curtains (hook them over the rail), and soft furnishings if time allows.
  • Raise larger furniture on bricks or blocks if you can't move it.
  • Move cars to higher ground early — but only if you can do it without driving through water.

Empty low cupboards and the bottom of the fridge-freezer if flooding looks likely: food spoiled by flood water has to be thrown away.

Turn off gas, electricity and water — when it's safe

If flooding is expected inside your home, turn off the electricity at the consumer unit, gas at the meter, and water at the stopcock — before water arrives, not after.

Never touch electrical switches, sockets or the fuse box with wet hands, or while standing in water. If water has already reached the electrics, leave them alone and keep away — treat every flooded room as live until a professional says otherwise.

It helps to find your stopcock and fuse box now, in the calm — a surprising number of people first go looking for them by torchlight with water at the door.

Sandbags: a reality check

Sandbags help, but less than most people expect. They slow water down rather than stop it, they don't seal against a wall, and flood water often finds its way in through airbricks, drains and floors anyway. Councils may provide them during a flood, but supplies run out fast and many councils no longer offer them at all.

If you have purpose-made barriers or airbrick covers, fit them now. If you only have sandbags (or improvised alternatives like bags of soil in doubled bin liners), use them across doorways and low airbricks — then plug indoor gaps with towels. Just don't let sandbagging eat the time you should spend moving people and possessions.

Never enter flood water — on foot or in a car

This is where people die in UK floods, and it deserves its own section.

  • Around 30cm (a foot) of moving water can float a car — and once it floats, you have no control.
  • Just 15cm of fast-flowing water can knock an adult off their feet.
  • Flood water hides open manholes, debris and sharp objects, and is frequently contaminated with sewage.
  • "Turn around, don't drown" applies even on roads you know well — depth is almost impossible to judge from a windscreen, especially at night.

If your route out involves driving through water of unknown depth, it is not a route out. Wait, or find another way.

Who to call: 999 vs Floodline

  • Call 999 if there is danger to life — someone trapped by water, water entering a property with vulnerable people inside, or anyone in the water.
  • Call Floodline on 0345 988 1188 (24 hours) for flood warnings information and advice in England, Scotland and Wales. It is not an emergency line.
  • Report burst water mains to your water company, and power cuts to 105, the free national power-cut number.

Use live data to judge your timing

A flood warning tells you flooding is expected in your area — it can't tell you exactly when water will reach your street. River levels can: if the gauge upstream of you is still rising fast, you have less time than you think; if it has peaked and is falling, the worst may already be passing through.

You can check live river levels near you on FloodRadar, and the next-24-hours outlook shows where levels are predicted to rise. Official river and rainfall data is also published by the Environment Agency. Treat all of it as guidance for your decisions, not a guarantee — small watercourses and surface water can flood with little warning at all.

Set a "leave by" trigger now, while you're calm — for example: "if water reaches the end of the road, or the warning is upgraded to severe, we go to my sister's." Decisions made in advance are far better than decisions made in rising water.

If you're told to evacuate

Go. Take your flood kit, medicines, pets and documents, lock up, and follow the route the emergency services give you — they know which roads are flooded. Tell someone where you're going. If you have nowhere to stay, your local council has a duty to help find emergency accommodation.

Afterwards, don't return until you're told it's safe, and contact your insurer as soon as you can. Flooding is stressful long after the water goes — the National Flood Forum offers practical and emotional support for flooded households.