Sewer Flooding Who to Call | West Midlands Guide

Storm Austen arrived on 22–23 October 2026 and within hours Severn Trent was pushing out public warnings for the West Midlands, naming Halesowen, Stourbridge, Wombourne, Kingswinford and Kinver as flood-risk areas. For homeowners watching water creep under the back door, the warning raised an immediate and very practical question: who do you actually ring?

The answer is not obvious, and that confusion costs people money. Call the wrong body and you lose the first ten minutes while they redirect you. Those ten minutes matter. They can be the difference between wet carpets that dry out and a floor that needs lifting.

Three types of flooding, three different bodies

Severn Trent's Storm Austen advisory was specifically about sewer flooding, which is one of three distinct categories. Getting them mixed up is understandable, they can all look like brown water coming where it shouldn't. But the responsibility split is clear once you know it.

Sewer flooding, Severn Trent. This is what Storm Austen was about. When the combined or foul sewer network gets overwhelmed, sewage backs up. You'll usually know because the water smells. It may appear in the garden, in a ground-floor toilet or through a drain cover that's lifted. Ring Severn Trent on 0800 783 4444, free, 24 hours. Log the call, write down the time, and get a reference number. Your insurer will want it.

Highway surface-water flooding, Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council. When rain runs off roads faster than the highway drainage can cope with, that's the council's patch. If water is sitting on the road or running from a highway gully into your property, the council's emergency line is your first call. Keep the number stored: 0121 704 8000.

River or watercourse flooding, Environment Agency. Live near the River Cole, the Blythe, any of the smaller brooks running through Dickens Heath, Hampton-in-Arden or Catherine-de-Barnes? Flooding from a watercourse goes to the EA. Their floodline is 0345 988 1188.

How to tell which type you're dealing with

Stand back and look before you wade in. A few quick checks will usually tell you.

• Smell. Sewage has a distinctive sulphurous odour. If the water smells, it's almost certainly a sewer issue.
• Which drain is backing up? If your inspection chamber lid has lifted or a toilet is overflowing up rather than draining down, that points to sewer surcharge.
• Where is the water coming from? Water sheeting across a road or running from a kerb is highway surface water. Water rising from a garden gully that you share with a neighbour could be either, check whether the nearest chamber shows sewage.
• Are you near a watercourse? If you're in Marston Green near the Cole, in Balsall Common near the Blythe, or in any of the lower-lying parts of B37 or B46, rising water with no smell and no drain involvement usually means the watercourse is overwhelmed.

You can often have more than one thing happening at once. Storm Austen brought that kind of intensity. If the road is flooded AND your inspection chamber is lifting, ring both the council and Severn Trent.

Why the first call matters for your insurance

This isn't just about getting help faster, though it is that. It's about the paper trail. Home insurers dealing with storm-related sewer flooding want to see that you reported the incident promptly to the responsible authority. A timestamped Severn Trent reference number on the night of the event is a much stronger starting point for a claim than a vague recollection two days later.

Severn Trent will also log whether the event was a network issue on their side, which matters if you need to argue that the flooding was not caused by any private drainage failure on your property.

What a drainage company can and can't do here

Here's the honest bit. If the problem is Severn Trent's main sewer surcharging under storm conditions, there's nothing a private drainage company can do that night to stop it. The sewer is overwhelmed and it will drain once the storm passes.

Where a company like Drainsco comes in is after the event. A CCTV drain survey will show whether your private lateral drain contributed to the backup, whether a partial blockage or a defect meant your drain was running full before the storm even started. If it was, that's your problem to fix and it'll happen again next storm. It's also worth knowing before your insurer asks.

Drainsco covers Solihull and the B postcodes, B37 to B94, with engineers on call 24 hours a day. No call-out fee, and you'll get a clear price before any work starts. If you've had storm flooding and you're not sure whether your private drain played a part, give us a call and we'll tell you honestly.