South Yorkshire floods: Some victims still not home a year on

A year ago this weekend a month's worth of rain fell in a 24-hour deluge over South Yorkshire, flooding 1,500 buildings. People who live and work along the flow of the River Don have shared their memories of the time, with some frustrated homeowners still living in rented accommodation or caravans.

As the clock approached midnight on 8 November 2019, Justin Smith woke up to the sound of frantic banging on his front door, and the voice of a neighbour yelling "You've got to get out mate, it's coming".

His home in Fishlake was one of the properties ruined by dirty flood water, waist-deep in places.

The village, near Doncaster, saw approximately 160 homes and businesses flooded, with repair work stalling in many households because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr Smith's home being flooded capped an "awful" period of his life, with 2019 also seeing him separate from his wife of 18 years and his marketing director role being made redundant.

"My last working day, ironically, was the day my house flooded, then for the rest of the winter I was staying with family," he said.

After waking up, he rushed around the house throwing some belongings in a bag, rescuing his two springer spaniels and moving his TV upstairs as water poured in through his cloakroom cupboard.

"I ended up going down to the local pub, the landlady gave me a quilt and I slept in the corner of the pub for the night with the dogs," he said.

"The next morning I was leaving the village on the back of a tractor, it was a bizarre time."

Fishlake became a familiar name to millions across the nation, with TV crews ferried in and out of the village by local farmers in trailers.

Alongside the cameras came some high-profile visitors, with the Prime Minister given a frosty reception in nearby Stainforth almost a week after the flooding.

As British Army personnel put down sandbags to shore up the village's bridge, Boris Johnson was met with shouts of "Where have you been?" and "You took your time".

"I ended up stood in my flooded house talking to Prince Charles, which was one of the most bizarre moments of my life," Mr Smith said.

"I'd never had thought I'd meet him, let alone in my living room."

Dan Greenslade, another Fishlake resident, found his elation at becoming a father on the Friday morning abruptly halted by an urgent phone call to the hospital.

"It was about one in the morning on Saturday, the midwife came into the room and I was sat beside my partner on one of those little chairs you're given next to the bed," Mr Greenslade said.

"She said my sister was on the phone and the house was flooding."

As lockdown in March delayed repairs on their drying house, it was seven months before Mr Greenslade and partner Jade Croft could bring daughter Indie back to the family home for the first time.

"Everyone's going to get a bit nervous at this time of year now, every time I drive over the river I find myself checking how high it is, then looking at the forecast to see how much rain is due," he said.

Further upstream from Fishlake, people in the Doncaster suburb of Bentley had seen it all before.

Flooding in 2007 left some unable to afford growing flood insurance costs, with a report released on Thursday finding 25 homes in the town did not have appropriate cover included in their 2019 policy.

Lorna Ulyett's home was covered but ongoing disagreements with her insurer have meant she and her partner are still living in a caravan in their back garden.

"The novelty wears off very quickly, you don't realise how much you're going to miss the simple things like frying an egg, the basic day-to-day stuff gets very difficult and tedious," she said.

"All our kids have asked for for Christmas is for us to sit in the kitchen and eat a Christmas dinner that I've cooked for them, that's all they want."

Rotherham, along with Sheffield, saw the early brunt of the rainfall, with businesses in the Parkgate area suffering huge damage.

The Homeflair furniture retailer had 300 sofas ruined, with the company lacking in flood insurance after it was flooded 13 years ago.

Homeflair director Hanif Khan said: "It's been very hard, especially when you lose so much stock, you have to replenish the stock and need the finances to do it.

"If any insurance company wants to operate within the UK they should be made to offer the people in the flood zones flood cover."

Mr Khan said his business spent "hundreds of thousands of pounds" on repair costs and lost further money in a recent ram-raid on the shop. But sales of sofas and outdoor furniture during lockdown saved the company he founded in 1981.

"I think if it gets flooded again we'd be gone, we'd be history," he said.

In July, the government unveiled a £5.2bn plan to tackle the risks of flooding and coastal erosion, aiming to ensure 336,000 properties in England were "better protected" by 2027.

The Environment Agency has been in the process of completing a £12m programme of defences across South Yorkshire, with 100 separate projects including reinforcing river banks and upgrading pumping stations.

Helen Batt, the county's flood risk manager, said: "Sadly we can't guarantee that South Yorkshire won't flood again, The climate's changing, we're getting more intense rainfall, higher sea level rises so unfortunately it's more likely that we'll flood more frequently in the future.

"We have carried out a lot of work in the last year, the defences are in a better condition and also we're working with partners to look at what more we can do to better protect communities going forward."

Back in Fishlake, Mr Smith and other villagers have been finishing a book about their experiences, aimed at being a historical document and a thank you to the hundreds of volunteers across the region who assisted during their time of need.

"I'm hoping 2021 will be a great year," he said.

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