Storm won't be forgotten as town gets back on track

DAVID Clarke sat in the large blue steel box that is now his office and smiled: "This is luxury."

Mary Nancekivell wandered about the new kitchen she didn't really want while grandson James, two, swept up with his toy tractor.

Lindsay Buckingham was still smiling and congratulating herself on being a master carpet cleaner.

And mother-of-three Andrea Millard recalled the best birthday she had ever had — and worried if she would ever be able to sell her pretty little terraced house.

They all had stories and memories of that night four weeks ago today that brought torrential rain, a bizarre hailstorm and record-smashing floods to Ottery St Mary.

For a few hours, the ancient town was the centre of media attention but now the camera crews and reporters have all gone away — leaving people like David, Mary, Lindsay and Andrea to mop up their lives and start all over again.

"Many people have just forgotten about it all but not those who live here and lived through it, " says David Clark, who runs Riverside Motors just a few yards from the old St Saviour's Bridge that spans the now quiet River Otter.

Four weeks ago, the river and Riverside Motors were as one as the water crashed over banks and flooded the entire area.

That morning he looked around him and said: "It was just impossible to stop. The water rose very quickly and three or four of the cars we have here were filled with water. I think they are write-offs, given the water and dirt that have got into the engines and electrics." This morning, his office is a blue steel windowless cabin, full of cardboard boxes. He said: "To say it has been absolute hell would really be an understatement. Words cannot describe seeing 34 years of your life going down the river.

"This large steel box is luxury. It came just two days after the flood

"I think if you have never lived through something like that day you cannot really know what it was like.

"I have seen floods before but nothing like that. I was kept going just by adrenalin and hard work at the time but the next day it sank in. I was in tears .

"We lost 10 vehicles and most of our hire cars are write-offs —it was grim, is grim and will be grimmer.

"This is the first time I have been able to sit at a desk because I have been out cleaning up. The staff have been wonderful, working all hours, way beyond the call of duty, just to keep going.

"The jobs are starting to trickle back but I don't expect to be where we were four weeks ago until Easter. That's how bad it still is."

Mr Clark was alerted to the flooding that tempestuous night by neighbour Mary Nancekivell of the well-named Island Farm.

That morning her home was under some 18 inches of dirty water.

She said then: "It all happened so very quickly and I couldn't believe it when I looked out the window and saw the snow building up. It was about four feet deep. We will just have to get on and clean up.

"Most of the floors here are concrete but the front room has a wooden floor and that looks ruined."

Today Mrs Nancekivell looks around her.

"We are still here but it has been so very, very stressful. We still have the blowers drying the house out but there is dust everywhere.

"It is still a mess. We have had to peel the wallpaper off to help the walls dry, the skirting boards are gone and we're waiting to see if we have to replaster. We were insured and the company is fine about it all.

"I am getting a new kitchen but I didn't really want one. I didn't want any of this. I didn't expect to have any of this.

"And yet, in the middle of it all little James opens up the cupboards that are full of mess and plays with his toy tractor. You have to smile — and family has really helped.

"Both my daughter-in-laws have been wonderful to my husband John and I. They have fed us and looked after us and we have used the house as our headquarters — after all we still have a farm to run.

Nearer the town, at Bridge House, in the shadow of St Saviour's Bridge, Lindsay Buckingham, 26, had put on a brave face, despite four inches of water running through her detached home.

She said then: "I heard all the storms and checked downstairs at midnight and it was all dry except for a small leak in the roof. Then I came down in the morning and the water was everywhere. We have just had new carpets in and they're ruined."

Today she said: "We were lucky and I can still smile because we saved the carpets. We hired a carpet cleaner the next day and spent from 10am to 10.30pm on the Saturday and from 9am to 7.30pm on the Sunday cleaning the three carpets.

"They look fine now and the place we bought them from say they should be all right.

"It is different for us in a way because we only rent the house but we worked hard to beat the flooding. We have only just got rid of the smell in the house which was awful."

Across the bridge in Victoria Terrace, half the residents had been flooded out while the other half, just a few feet higher, escaped the worst.

Those safe and dry immediately offered help to those less fortunate.

Among those hit hardest was Andrea Millard who was just two days short of her 37th birthday when the flood waters rose and engulfed the ground floor of her terraced home.

Today she said: "We are still here and worrying it will happen again. We saved what we could before the floods hit. I'd been woken by the noise, but all the downstairs was flooded.

"The torrent even washed away all our Wellingtons, we found them across the road a little later, wedged in the wall.

"We were not insured and now we cannot get insurance because we are regarded as a flood area.

"I wonder if we will ever be able to sell the house after this because it will be listed as being in a flood area

"It was awful when the people crowded round to have a look at us that day but then the other side came through with all the help we got from friends and neighbours.

"It was my birthday on the Saturday and it turned out to be the best birthday I have ever had. Friends, family and neighbours were wonderful. It does bring out the best in people."

One of those who rallied round was Tina Paddon whose home was just a few feet away — but on higher ground.

She said: "We were lucky and we were happy to be able to help our neighbours," she said. "We must have had about five or six in all night. It was a case of lots of tea and no sleep.

In the town that day, Toby Caines had a wide brush to hand-clean water from The Gallery, which he opened earlier this year.

He said then: "I will have to wait and see just what the damage is. It goes without saying, it's not good but it will be business as usual."

Today he said: "We saved everything. I worked with the brush from 8.30am to 3pm that day getting the water out. There was plenty of water in the shop but we are on two levels so the worst of it didn't get through.It turned out to be business as usual."

That day, in the centre of the town, at Antiques and Collectibles in Silver Street, somebody else was battling against the rising water levels.

Shop owner Emma Ibbeson was hard at work trying to dry out her shop carpet. She said then: "I managed to get a flood barrier in front of the door and water came up to just below the top so it doesn't seem too bad."

Today she said: "Getting that flood barrier saved us. We got some water in but not too much, nothing like as bad as other shops around here. The trouble is people still think Ottery is closed . We get people coming along saying they thought nothing would be open. But we are open, and we want people to know it."