Clean-up continues after homes flooded amid Shropshire storms drama
Home and business owners are continuing to clear up after the county was hammered by storms for two nights in a row.
Thunder, lightning and torrential rain caused havoc across all of Shropshire on Wednesday evening while parts of the county also suffered throughout Tuesday night.
Roads, homes, pubs and supermarkets were flooded and firefighters responded to more than 100 calls in just two hours during the worst of the storms.
Among the call-outs emergency services had to deal with were several to homes in Wren’s Nest Lane, Ketley, where three bungalows were flooded for the second time in just over a decade.
It once more left devastated householders counting the cost. Residents have been busy cleaning furniture, removing soaked carpets and sweeping up debris.
James Wilde, age 83, said: “I have never seen anything like it. The rainfall was like being in the tropics. It was torrential. Within five minutes the road was full of water despite there being flood defences in the vicinity.
"It came about 18 inches up our front wall and flowed into the hallway, the back bedroom and the bathroom.
“My car was also flooded. I got the engine running and I’m using a pump to get the water out. Hopefully it will be all right. The fire service came to help us, but we haven’t seen the council or Severn Trent Water.
“Some years ago Severn Trent did spend a lot of money installing a new water main, drains and putting in an underground tank in the corner near the pub car park.”
Stephen Watson, 62, said: “At about 8.30pm I noticed a lot of water was coming down towards us from Rock Road so I decided to move my car out of the way. By the time I’d done that the water had flowed right up to our front door.
“The water flooded right to the back in all the rooms. All the carpets were soaked. We’ve phoned the insurance company to see if we can claim. Three cars also got stuck in the water in the middle of the road and we had to flag down a van driver coming behind them to tell him to slow down.”
His father John Watson, 86, said: “This is the second time in 13 years that we’ve been flooded. The first time was in 2007, but this time it was much worse.
“We had hoped nothing like this would ever happen to us again, but there’s not much that we can do about it. Hopefully the authorities may be able to do something to prevent it in future.”
In Ironbridge, residents woke up yesterday to discover a wall at the rear of Merrythought teddy bear shop had dramatically collapsed overnight.
Gorge Parish councillor Garreth Anderson said: "It was all right the night before and when we went out the next morning it was down. The only thing that's happened since then is some flooding so we think that was the cause of the collapse.
"Fortunately no-one was hurt. I live about 200 yards away and the first I knew about it was on Facebook."
