“Everything is destroyed, nothing can be saved”: anger and despair in communities devastated by floods in the North West | Flood

AAround 3:15 a.m. on New Year’s Day, Caroline McClymont looked out her bedroom window at Sankey Creek across the road. It seemed a little fuller than usual – which was to be expected given the rain. “But there was nothing out of the ordinary,” McClymont said. “There was no indication there was going to be a flood.”

Within an hour, the entire street was under water. The home that McClymont, a science teacher, has owned with her husband Alan, a technician, for 31 years, was filled with dirty water, taller than the kitchen counters. It covered the sofas, the washing machine, the Christmas tree, the whole downstairs. The neighbor’s car was submerged. “Everything is destroyed. Nothing could be saved,” McClymont said. “It will take six, seven months to restore the situation.

“It’s all those memories you’ve been collecting for years and little things you can’t replace. Nothing can be saved, because it is not only the canal water, but also the wastewater from the sewers.”

The damage caused by the waters – now withdrawn – is extreme. But for McClymont and its neighbors, the flooding was no surprise. For years they have been pleading with the local council and Environment Agency to improve the area’s defenses after a series of similar incidents, including floods in 2000, 2012, 2015 and a less serious one last month .

Their street in Haydock, St Helens, Merseyside, is on low lying land at the intersection of several waterways, the Sankey Canal and two streams, making it vulnerable. Problems worsened during the New Year’s floods when a water pump installed to quickly drain the area failed to activate – apparently due to a power outage at a United Utilities site, caused when the creek overflowed.

But McClymont, who chairs the Blackbrook Flood Group and runs a WhatsApp group with flood alerts for residents, says simple things that could reduce the risk have been neglected, including maintenance and dredging. The pipes meant to divert water when flows are high are filled with leaves, which she and Alan often rake up themselves during heavy rains. The promised telemetry system to monitor water levels has also not been activated, with residents reporting it was still being calibrated.

“We’ve been fighting this for years,” she said. “People say, ‘Why don’t you move?’ but I can’t afford to buy another house. No one is going to buy it now that it’s flooded. So we’re stuck here.

A few doors away, Chris Moles, 60, a microbiologist who moved in last year, estimates that she and her husband, hotel manager Adrian, 53, lost goods worth 30,000 £, including a car, kitchen utensils and a Macbook – as well as his microscope, fossils, rare books and an autograph of Leonard Nimoy, Mr Spock. “Obviously we are alive. Everyone survived. But this is the worst it’s ever been,” she said. The couple also lost the artwork of Adrian’s son, Adam, who died of Addison’s disease five years ago. years old, at the age of 15 “We would have lost everything if we could have kept that drawing that he did,” Moles said.

Before buying the house – their first – in April, they say they were promised defenses had been put in place and the risk of flooding was “very slim”. “We were told that they had done this, that and the other, and that there was a very small chance of it being flooded. That didn’t turn out to be true,” she said.

“It’s heartbreaking. I can understand that there are tons of people who need help. There are lots of places that are flooded. But when it happened four, five times, you’d think they would have done something by now. You pay council tax and you trust those responsible to act in your best interests. And that just didn’t happen. We have literally been left behind.

Seven miles away, in Bewsey, Warrington, residents near another stretch of the Sankey Canal suffered the same fate. Vulnerable people living in supported accommodation were among the worst affected after a stream connected to the canal overflowed.

Among them was Barbara Gee, 61, who was preparing a New Year’s Eve meal for her husband of 42 years, Alan, 67, when the water started pouring in. Around 3:30 p.m., she looked out the front window of her bungalow and saw the playgrounds and road submerged.

It seemed to be encroaching. But after a flood in 2021, the couple were given a flood barrier by the housing society which manages the property to attach to their front door.

Gee sent his daughter Liz a photo of the flood, which had reached her doorstep. “OMG,” Liz replied, asking if the flood barrier was working. “For now,” Gee replied. But within half an hour, the defense was overwhelmed. She said the water was not just flowing through the front door but into every room: it was gushing down the drain in their bathroom, out the toilet and seeping through the walls. “I was crying. I just burst into tears,” she said.

The couple lost almost everything they owned. Friday, three days after the flood, their belongings were piled up on their lawn, contaminated or destroyed. The pile included a couch, kitchen appliances, rugs and Gee’s electric scooter.

An alert system used to call for help in an emergency has broken down. Their clothes and shoes were soaked. “We lost four trash bags full of food in the freezer and it’s all wet,” Gee said.

They are stoic and grateful: they have a family who can support them. And they thank Warrington local council for helping to put them in a hotel while they try to sort out the problems. But they feel like they and their neighbors have been neglected.

“The flood defenses did not work. It must be much safer. We received help with housing and food; I can’t knock them for that. They were so good like that. They tried to erect flood barriers, but it didn’t work. They probably thought it would help. But what’s the point of having flood barriers if water has to pass through the walls? » said Gee. The cleanup will take months, without the household insurance money, which they couldn’t afford to pay “because of the cost of living” and because after the last flood, “it’s too much Dear “.

Their neighbor Jeffrey Frain, 78, a lollipop man and former bus driver, whose belongings are also piled up in front of his bungalow, is in the same boat. “I think it’s very expensive to get insurance here…During the last floods, premiums went up,” he said. He said flood barriers provided by the housing association were a “waste of space”.

“I installed the flood barriers, but the water came in within minutes. I tried to get rid of it, but I gave up,” he said. “It’s disastrous for me. I have a dog. I live alone. I live with one of my sons but I feel like a burden and I don’t like to impose myself.

He added: “The floods have been going on for years. It’s an ongoing thing and I don’t think they’ve done enough.

Back in Haydock, the cleanup mission is in full swing. On Friday, volunteers came armed with cleaning supplies to clean the bathrooms and group the destroyed goods into dumpsters.

The McClymonts – one of the few households on the road who were able to get insurance – have to keep everything until the assessors arrive, so their driveway is covered with 20 black bags.

The worst part, says Amy, 25, who lives with her stepfather Richard Coulburn and mother Joanne a few doors away, is that she feels it could have been avoided. “It’s traumatic,” Amy said. “We are going to be traumatized every time it rains. We need this to no longer be a worry. I think it’s ridiculous. This happened about 10 years ago. How can this happen again?

An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “Protecting communities is our top priority… Environment Agency teams have been working around the clock over the new year, operating flood defences, issuing flood warnings and supporting affected communities.

“More broadly, we are delivering a long-term funding program for flood defences, investing more than £1 billion this year to increase national resilience by building new flood defenses and improving existing flood defenses. »

Adam Hug, spokesperson for the Local Government Association for the Environment, said: “While councils will always do their best to ensure their areas are as resilient as possible and, where they meet conditions extreme weather, prioritize efforts to keep residents safe, financial pressures on local government have increased. impact their ability to solve problems such as flooding as much as they want…

“The nation is not sufficiently prepared (for the impacts of climate change) and central government must prioritize its work with local authorities to close this gap. »

Commenting on the flooding in Haydock, United Utilities said: “A pumping station was flooded when the local stream overflowed. This caused a power outage at our site. We have deployed a tanker on site to manage our operations.