FLOODS HELL: FAMILIES FACE XMAS MISERY
Can’t go home one month on
“BIBLICAL” floods which devastated towns and villages have left hundreds of people facing the festive season homeless.
Dozens of families can expect to spend Christmas Day stranded in hotels while their houses remain uninhabitable.
It is thought more than 1,000 households were affected by the flooding, which hit communities across Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire last month.
Many of those affected are staying in the same hotels.
Around 300 homes and businesses in Worksop, Notts, were swamped in knee-high flood water when the River Ryton burst its banks after downpours.
Evacuated parents there told the Daily Star Sunday they are struggling to explain to their children where they will be living this Christmas.
Mum Jackie Anne Conley said: “No mum or dad should have to go through what we are going through. I’ve been moved between two hotels, but I know someone who’s been moved between three.
“On some nights the insurance hasn’t been able to get my family somewhere and asked me to find accommodation for myself.”
Mandy Bell and her three children are staying in a bed and breakfast. She said: “I can’t put the magic of Christmas together for them in a hotel with no personal space.
“Exactly how do you explain to three children they have no home for Christmas?”
Some residents claimed lessons have not been learned since flooding in summer 2007. Roger Stocks, 62, whose house in Worksop has been hit twice, said: “Promises were made after 2007 by councillors and the local MP that this was a once-in-a-lifetime event and would never happen again. “Twelve years later and we are faced with the same again, but this time a lot of properties and businesses have gone beyond restoration.” His neighbour Angela Hunt, 46, was also hit again.
She said: “I was flooded this month, I was also flooded 12 years ago. My insurance doesn’t cover floods. All I want to do is mend my house and sell it, but it looks like that will not happen.”