Families are living in hotels after flooding heavily damaged their homes on New Year’s Day
Flooding has ruined houses in Haydock
Residents in Haydock have been without power and living in hotels for six days after their homes were destroyed by floods. Merseyside was battered by heavy rain on New Year’s Eve, with heavy downpours continuing into the early hours of the morning, resulting in flooding, road closures and travel disruption across the region.
Haydock in St Helens, saw particularly horrendous weather conditions as dozens of homes at the junction of Blackbrook Road and West End Road were submerged in “6ft of filthy water” after the Sankey Canal burst its banks. The flooding left resident’s homes, including that of Daniel Pownall, 39, completely destroyed.
Daniel, who owns two properties on West End Road, one which he lives in with his wife and two children and the other he has been refurbishing to sell, woke up in the early hours of New Year’s Day to find water gushing into his home. He told the ECHO: “We invited the New Year in and about half past 12 we decided to go to bed. We woke up around 3am, everyone was ringing and shouting. Then we found out we were flooding. We were trying to save cars, running around everywhere.
“My missus jumped through the top window to get out and save her car, she managed to drive it up the street out of the way. Within no more than 15 minutes it [the water levels] was up to your stomach, you couldn’t walk around the house or put your feet in it, it was that cold.
“I had my two kids with me, it was horrible. When the water was coming in my kid went to the top of the stairs and looked down and said ‘dad are we going to drown.’ No we weren’t but we had to go and get the kids and just lie in bed and wait for it [the water levels] to either come up or down. It was like a scene from Titanic, you know where they just lie in bed and wait for the water to come, that was like us just lying in bed.
“It was horrendous. I have classic cars, motorbikes, that have been flooded, I don’t know how much we have lost. We’re in limbo at the moment. It’s horrible. The firemen were shouting up saying they were going to try and get us out.”
The area is notorious to flooding, however residents claim it has never been this bad before. He added: “Before we flooded we’d emptied our bottom cupboards and put stuff on top of the sofas thinking it wouldn’t come that high. We’d put cereal on the tops thinking the kids would have something for breakfast the next morning but it came up to the top of the work tops, the oven was floating about and there were Coco Pops and Rice Krispies floating around everywhere.”
The family moved into their home, which previously belonged to Daniel’s mother-in-law, in May, last year, after she died. Sadly, sentimental items belonging to her, among other things, have been destroyed in the flood.
Daniel added: “We’d left the kids Christmas presents under the tree downstairs over New Year and they have all been destroyed. My wife usually puts them away before New Year but because we had been busy we left them out. There are PlayStations, Nintendo Switches, all gone. Games, iPads all gone.
“I have a fishpond in the garden and when we looked out the window we could see them all [the fish] swimming around the garden in the flood, they have all gone now, they must have gone down the manhole in the garden. My wife had booked me a surprise trip next month for my 40th birthday but she just said the passports have been ruined too.”
Daniel continued: “We’re just taking it a day at a time and getting used to having to live out of hotels like this. I don’t know where half my clothes are, so taking the kids to school this morning from the hotel was an experience, that many friends and family have taken stuff for us. It’s brilliant what the community has done for us.”
Another flood victim, Chris Moles, 60, who is a student teacher at university, moved into her home on West End Road in April, with her husband, Adrian and claims they have been left with over £30,000 worth of damage following the January 1 floods.
Chris told the ECHO: “It was our puppies that alerted us to it, we were upstairs asleep in bed. They started making a noise to alert us. It was about 5am when we woke up and it was already flooding. We had woken up at 3am and checked the water and it wasn’t that high, we thought we were going to be OK then within, I’d say 30 minutes, it came completely up here [pointing to the middle of her living room wall]. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was off the scale.
“Absolutely traumatised. When it started pouring through I was gasping for breath as if I was ready to go under. It was terrifying, absolutely terrifying. My husband’s diabetic medication was down here and we couldn’t get to it so we had to get the firemen who were patrolling up and down to come in and force the door in and get it for us and pass it upstairs to us.
“It was covering the worktops. I can smell something in the kitchen, it smells like a rat or something has died in here. Everything needs to be ripped out as fast as possible. The pictures are bizarre, the brown water went over the units and started coming up the stairs, that’s when it started getting higher. We were trapped upstairs.
“I could hear things crashing downstairs. It was washing day so all our clothes and towels were downstairs too, we’ve got nothing. We’ve lost around £30,000 in personal stuff, that’s not including the kitchen and stuff. This is the first house we have bought, this is the first time anything like this has happened to us, we don’t know where to start.
“We have no contents insurance, we didn’t notice when we went through the paperwork that we didn’t have it. Everything we had has gone. I waited 60 years to get a Chesterfield sofa because it has always been my dream to have one, I’ve had it less than one year and it’s gone and we have no comeback.
“The car, it was unbelievable, it was up to here [pointing to the middle of the bonnet]. It has been written off, we’re waiting for them to come and tow it away. Adrian works in Manchester, the car is a right off. We haven’t got any cash.
“Our puppies are stressed and sick. There is a tide mark up the wall where the water went up to, our sofa is on the front, no floors, skirting boards, wallpaper ripped off, everything destroyed. The only pair of shoes I have are the ones on my feet because they are all kept in the porch. We may as well have just left the door open. It’s absolutely ridiculous. We’re stuck, we don’t know the protocol. We don’t know where to start.”
Chris claims they can’t start repair work on the house until they’ve had electricity restored. She said: “They have told us it’s going to be at least 28 days until the house is dry. We just want to have a normal life again, I was supposed to be back at work today.
“The community has been fantastic, they have brought us warm clothes, sweatshirts and towels so that we can mop up. They have brought us loads of pot noodles and food for us to eat. We’re having to eat pot noodles in the hotel because we can’t eat anything here because there is no electricity, it’s outrageous. Six days without electricity now.”
A St Helens Council spokesman previously told the ECHO said: “Council officers were in attendance yesterday [January 2] to assist partners, including emergency services.”
A spokesman for the Environment Agency, which maintains the brook, said: “Our hearts go out to those affected by flooding across Greater Manchester Merseyside and Cheshire. Environment Agency teams have been working around the clock over the New Year, operating flood defences, taking action to reduce the impact of flooding, such as clearing debris from a brook in Haydock, issuing flood warnings and supporting those communities affected.”