Landslides cleared from B862 and B852 roads, Highland Council confirms
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TWO landslides which blocked roads south of Loch Ness have been cleared and the routes have reopened, Highland Council has confirmed.
The B862 between Dores and Torness, and the B852 between Dores and Foyers were both blocked today after torrential overnight rain swept tonnes of rock and mud onto their surfaces.
But, just after 4.20pm, the council announced that it had been able to clear both sites.
However, it warned motorists that while the roads are now open "there is a degree of debris present so care should be exercised".
The removal of the landslides was just one part of a much larger clean-up operation by council staff across the Highlands this morning.
Elsewhere, the significant overnight rainfall "caused several flooding issues" around Inverness and Culloden.
Some 36mm of rain was recorded by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency's equipment at Inshes over a brief two to three hour window overnight.
The intensity of the rainfall caused localised flooding on a number of city roads, including Barn Church Road, Millburn Road, Island Bank Road, Old Perth Road, Drakies Avenue, Diriebught Road, Harbour Road and roads in the Inverness Royal Academy area.
South of the city, roads officers also responded to incidents in the River Dulnain area, which burst its banks west of Carrbridge and flooded the village's Station Road at two locations.
One of the breeches has since receded and the edge of the road which was undermined has been coned off.
The C class road between Balnaan and Auchenblair was also flooded in several locations and closed to traffic.
Several car parks in Grantown on Spey had surface water lying and sandbags have been given out to several properties in the town.
Sandbags were also provided to a property in the Laggan area which was being flooded.
Stuart Black, Highland Council’s director of development and infrastructure said: “Roads were flooded due to the extreme intensity of the rainfall that produced an overwhelming volume of water which in turn mobilised and transported debris. Once the rain stopped, flood waters drained away very quickly.”
A yellow weather warning for possible thunderstorms and heavy showers remains in force in the Highlands. It had been expected to end at 10pm tonight (Wednesday) but has since been extended until 7am tomorrow.
And a further warning for thundery downpours has now been issued for Saturday. Set to last all day on Saturday, the warning covers most of mainland Scotland to the east and south of the Great Glen and as far north as Inverness.
A yellow warning for rain will also operate on Friday, but is not expected to extend quite as far north as the northern Highlands. It will, however, cover all of Northern Ireland and Wales, most of England, and Scotland as far north as Fort William in the west and Deeside and Donside in the east.
