The torrent brought with it everything, including the kitchen sink. Boulders, rivers of mud, slabs of asphalt the size of dining tables and an upside down garden shed littered the seafront road in the Cornish village of Coverack yesterday morning.
More than 100mm of rain had funnelled down the steeply sloping streets, pouring over the sea wall and into the 18th-century granite harbour.
The colourful fishing boats escaped unscathed but at least 50 homes were not so lucky, with some residents having to be winched to safety. Other areas were on standby last night, with the threat of heavy downpours and a risk of disruption to power networks from lightning strikes.
A yellow weather warning was in place for today over large parts of England and Wales, with the Met Office predicting that a month’s rain could fall in some places in a matter of hours.
In Coverack, Chris Price surveyed the damage to his seafront cottage. A tide mark six-foot high showed where water from the usually placid stream behind his house had stopped rising. Mr Price, 57, a gunsmith, said: “If the firemen hadn’t opened the windows we’d have lost the house. The pressure would have collapsed the walls and the whole lot could have come down.”
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His good fortune extends only so far. Because of the watercourse he had been unable to get flood insurance for the holiday cottage. At least five tonnes of mud was shovelled out of the windows before the clear-up could begin.
This time last week the cottage was occupied by friends of Mr Price and his wife, Elaine. Had they been there when the water poured in, it is unlikely they would have survived.
Penny Hammill has lived in her house for 54 years. On Tuesday evening she and her husband, Chris, were winched to safety from an upstairs window by a rescue helicopter. They swung above the raging torrent one at a time before the coastguard chopper lowered them gently into a neighbour’s field. Mr Hammill, 68, a stone mason, said: “It was terrifying. I much prefer having my feet on the ground.”
The main road into the fishing village, which is expecting to welcome dozens of holidaymakers when the schools break up this weekend, will be closed for the foreseeable future. The power of the water scoured the road surface like a giant pressure washer, leaving gullies and gaping holes and exposing water and sewage pipes. Coverack’s main car park, along with the honesty box where visitors are asked to leave a modest donation, has simply disappeared.
Laurence Couldrick, chief executive of the Westcountry Rivers Trust, estimated that the equivalent of 86 Olympic swimming pools full of water poured through Coverack in three hours.
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Many residents were at a wake for Captain George Bateman, a former Royal Navy officer, at the top of the village when the rain started. Christine Lewis said: “We couldn’t get back by car so we decided to walk through the fields. When we got to the alley the water was waist deep and flowing very fast so we had to cling on to the railings.”
Gillian Ashworth, 80, lived in Coverack as a child and returned with her husband Anthony, 81, eight years ago. The couple, who had lived in the US, had to be evacuated from their home. Mr Ashworth is bedridden and had to be pushed up the hill in his wheelchair. His wife said: “The emergency services were absolutely marvellous.”
Alison Smith, a teacher from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, has been staying at a seafront B&B. She said: “[On Tuesday] morning I was swimming in the sea and it was glorious. We went to Falmouth for the day and there wasn’t a drop of rain, though we did hear a bit of distant thunder. By the time we got back to Coverack the stream was like the Thames in Abingdon in full flow.”
Mrs Smith, 59, spent the second to last day of her holiday helping to carry ruined souvenirs out of the Old Mill tourist shop next door to her B&B.