Homes cut off by a ‘river’ of floodwater
Flooding outside the Setting Sail Day Nursery in Killinghall. Picture by Sue Ball. (S)
Distraught homeowners on a Harrogate street are calling for something to be done after they were caught in a deluge of floodwaters.
A “river” of rainwater cut off many homes on Grainbeck Lane last week, with one house being swamped by up to two feet of dirty sewage water.
And as water levels rose, children at Setting Sail Day Nursery had to be carried to their waiting parents who couldn’t get into the car park.
Neighbour Caroline Murray, 39, who has three young children, said: “It’s quite scary. You try to make it into a game for the children. But when you go to bed at night, you don’t know what’s going to happen when you get up in the morning.”
Heavy rains last Monday and Tuesday turned to a steady stream which ran down the quiet street, cutting off homes and electricity to some buildings.
Nursery owner Sue Ball, said: “The water comes down off the fells, down the road, and takes a sharp left down Grainbeck Lane. Outside, it was so high it came over the top of my wellies.”
Kevin Butler, 50, had raw sewage flooding into his home after the water filled up a neighbour’s sewer system.
“Water came gushing out at full belt,” he said. “Dirty water. We shouldn’t have to deal with it.”
Mr Butler is calling for something to be done to stop surface water collecting on the street and overloading the system.
“I can’t relax now, I’m thinking about when it’s going to happen again,” he said.
Yorkshire Water said it was trying to find out what had happened, adding that a local beck may have burst its banks, overloading sewers and drains.
“We have clean-up teams out in the area helping those customers who were affected,” a spokesman said. “We’ll continue to do what we can to ascertain the cause of this flooding and prevent any similar occurrence happening again.”
The county council added that it had helped with sandbagging and that it was ready to explore any drainage issues, although this is often the responsibility of landowners.
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Weather for Harrogate
Wednesday 22 May 2013
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 4 C to 16 C
Wind Speed: 22 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Light showers
Temperature: 6 C to 11 C
Wind Speed: 22 mph
Wind direction: North west
