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was concerned, it had to be at least three or three-and-a-half foot deep.”

With the main entrance to the hospital also surrounded by water, the group aced further difficulty reaching the fullyunctioning maternity ward on the hospial’s second floor.

Mrs Williams said: “The fire service wung into Neville Street as it was the only dry spot. We had to get in the crane and they lifted us across the road to the hospital.

“At the time it was really exciting and quite an achievement.”

For others, however, the flood was not o much of a happy occasion.

On the day of the flood, Canton resident Lynne Thomas was at home with her tetraplegic son and foster daughter when her husband Ken was sent home rom work after a warning was issued over the tannoy.

With water starting to rise, the lorry driver raced straight from their home to he nearest police station, enlisting the help of the officers and a boat to their house near Albert Street to rescue their 11-year-old son.

Mrs Thomas said: “I put my son upstairs as the water got higher. There was no light and no heating.

“The police came in and my husband carried him out to a boat. We paddled to Canton Police Station and there was all he St John volunteers there.

“They took him to Llandough Hospital and he was there for two weeks as we couldn’t look after him. It was bedlam and it was so cold.

“The most memorable thing was all the burglar alarms going on from every shop and every premises. It was for about three days all day and all night.”

With house insurance less common han today, for some the floods also led to months of saving to fix the damage.

Living in Heath Street in Riverside at he time, Stephen Watkins and his family were trapped upstairs for several days waiting for the water to go down.

Mr Watkins said: “I was about 18 at the ime and I was working in Brains Brewery. When we knew there would be a lood I got dropped off at St David’s Hospital and as I was going home I could see he water coming down the lanes.

“We rushed to block the door but it was no good and in the next few hours it tarted coming in, the fridge started floatng.

“We were stuck upstairs for three days with my mum, dad and sister.

“We didn’t have a lot in those days and we didn’t have insurance so it was hard imes for my parents. It was really upseting, there was a lot we had to throw out and we had no money to replace it.”

For the 56-year-old, one of the worst effects of the flood was not just the ruined urniture, but also the smell that followed.

He added: “The smell was still there after six months. A lot of houses didn’t have concrete floors, just floorboards so there was a big gap where the water gathered.

“The mud was all on the floor, all on the furniture – the carpet had to go out.”

As the proud owners of their first home in Wells Street in Canton, for Catherine Coulson and husband Malcolm the floods came only days after the pressure of hosting their first family Christmas.

Like others, they were forced to remain trapped in their bedrooms until the water levels dropped enough to start the repairs.

Mrs Coulson, now living in Loughor in Swansea, said: “We had lots of leftovers in the house so that was marvellous.

“It had been raining for several days non-stop and my husband decided to have a look at the river and there was already water on Cathedral Road. He just said we had better get home.

“We moved as much as we could upstairs and had the three-piece suite up on the dining table, put sandbags on the front door and just waited.

“The water didn’t come through the front door, it came from the back and underneath the house.

“It wasn’t just water it was everything that comes with flood water and it just kept coming in. We had 5ft of flood water in the kitchen and we have a photo of the water in our front room with all the decorations floating around.

“We had to stay in the front bedroom with all the leftovers and the turkey carcass. It was a few days before the water receded.”

Mrs Coulson added: “The worst thing was people paddling down in canoes to have a look at how bad it was.

“The council gave us a tremendously strong disinfectant to clean it up. For the lad who lived next door it was his first house and he knew nothing about it until he got home. He had no insurance, but that was the norm.”

Despite the panic, however, for many their resounding memory is the sense of community the floods brought about.

While some were busy moving furniture for neighbours and the elderly, others were busy volunteering at hospitals to move equipment to higher floors.

Scuba diving clubs took to their wetsuits to hand out food to those stuck in their houses, and candles and cans were delivered by dinghy.

After the 1979 floods, £3m was spent building flood defences which have protected the city for the past 38 years.

The solid banks today between the Principality Stadium and Fitzhamon Embankment were built. The Taff was widened and deepened, with earth and rubble removed from the riverbed and used to shore up defences further up the river.

Even if the Taff breaches its banks at Blackweir, the flat Pontcanna playing fields are surrounded by a second bank, so that they can flood and take the brunt of the excess water without spilling over into residential areas.

But those who remember Cardiff’s last big flood will still keep a wary eye on the river whenever it rains.