Homes under water and school evacuated
Downpours cause flooding problems across the county
THERE was further weather chaos last week as homes, roads and a primary school flooded.
Vehicles struggled in many areas around the county, with long queues around Mountsorrel and Hathern during the morning rush-hour. on Friday.
In the far west of the county, several homes were inundated.
As well as flood alerts – which are designed to warn people to prepare – there were seven flood warnings around Leicestershire and Rutland, in areas such as Asfordby and Frisby, Thrussington, Anstey, Atherstone, Sheepy Magna and Stanford-on-Avon.
Appleby Magna district councillor Carl Benfield said he had heard reports of several houses in five roads of the village with water inside.
Meanwhile, a primary school in Ashby remained closed yesterday after it became surrounded by water on Thursday afternoon and pupils had to be evacuated.
Fire crews dealing with the situation at Ashby Willesley Primary School led about 20 children and about 20 adults to dry land during the incident.
The school said in a tweet: “Many, many thanks to the team from Ashby who came to our rescue this afternoon.
“You’re a credit to the fire and rescue service.”
A spokesman for the fire service said the incident was one of more than 40 flooding calls the service had received between lunchtime Thursday and Friday morning.
He said at about 8am on Friday: “Between about 1.30pm (Thursday) and now we have had just over 40 calls to either external flooding, water inside properties or vehicles that have become stuck after driving into flood water.
“At a primary school in Ashby about 20 adults and 20 children were helped. In Oakthorpe, we helped a couple of people out of their home after it flooded.
“We’re still getting calls this morning to vehicles stuck in floods. We are on to councils to get more road closure signs out.”
Other areas under flood warnings included Frisby-on-the-Wreake, near Melton, but postmaster Peter Dulieu said the situation seemed
When the water comes up it does so rapidly and there was so much the drains got backed up
stable by Saturday.
He said: “We managed to get around with our deliveries this morning. The bottom of Mill Lane in the village is under water but it’s been that way for a month now. You can’t get to Asfordby either, but that’s been true for a couple of weeks.
“We did have a flood warning but the main roads are all right.”
The paper also spoke to a resident of Sheepy Magna, which was partly subject to a flood warning.
The resident of Main Road said: “When the water comes up it comes up rapidly and yesterday there was so much the drains got backed up.
“It was the highest I’ve ever seen it in 28 years of living here.
“It seems to be easing off. The fields are very badly flooded still but I don’t think any homes are going to be at risk.”
Most of the problems were in the northern part of the county. At Hathern, near Loughborough, the A6 had to be closed after three vehicles were involved in a smash in the flood waters.
Three people were taken to the Queen’s Medical Centre, in Nottingham, with injuries.
Fire crews in Castle Donington had two calls to deal with stranded cars and during one visit to a flooded road they discovered nine disabled vehicles in deep water.
Meanwhile, flooding in Derbyshire meant trains were running on a very limited timetable for a couple of days and East Midland Railway started using replacement bus services to get people up and down the country.
The River Soar in Leicester reached its peak at about midday on Friday.