Chapel Street residents bear the brunt of River Lowman flooding
The following is from my own website Link -
TIVERTON residents in Chapel Street were shifting sandbags this afternoon when their road was flooded from excess water in the River Lowman within the space of thirty minutes.
The River Lowman burst its banks and the residents say it is the worst flooding they have seen in over quarter of a century.
The environment agency issued a flood warning for Chapel Street and surrounding areas at 2:29pm today (Thursday 11 October 2012), and the flood hit within an hour.
Tony Short, whose mother lives in Chapel Street said: "I drove up here at 3.00pm and there was no water then. When I returned half an hour later I could barely get through so it's flooded very quickly.
"We came through Lowman Green on our way, and were shocked at the amount of water that is here."
Chapel Street resident Mrs Ashelford who has lived on the street since 1981 said: "I haven't seen flooding as bad as this in all my years here.
"Thankfully the water hasn't quite reached my house and we've got some generous neighbours giving sandbags to people."
Of those helping with the efforts to protect houses with sandbags was Phil Kingdon and his daughter Hayley.
Phil said: ""We phoned the council, but couldn't get through. They must be very busy today, so we had to do something, and went and got some sandbags ourselves.
"We asked for 18 and they've all been used so hopefully that will be enough.
"When we bought the house, we didn't realise we were in a potential flooding area otherwise we wouldn't have moved here."
Gary Bolt planned to cycle through Chapel Street on his way home from work, but had to phone his wife to bring him some wellington boots.
He said: "We've lived here for 25 years and we've never seen anything like this before.
"I was going to cycle through it, but when I saw it, I decided I needed to get some wellies.
"We live at the bottom of Chapel Street, were here ten years ago when the Prince Regent flooded, but it was nothing quite like this. "
Police closed the road off shortly after 4:00pm. Some residents were angry at motorists who were creating a ripple effect in the water as they drove past.
Tiverton's flooding was also featured on ITV Westcountry's evening news at 6.00pm.
Mid Devon Police Officer PC McCormack said: "It's been a very busy day, especially for our officers in East Devon.
"We've had a few accidents on the M5 Motorway today as well. My advice to motorists is to slow right down and put your lights on when driving in wet conditions."
- When
- Fri, 12 Oct 2012 at 02:09
- Grid Square
- SS9512
- Chosen Photo
blog comments powered by Disqus