How a community rallied together during flooding
IT’S a weekday afternoon and there is a quiet stream of activity on Bridge Street in Crickhowell. Doors are open and windows are full of condensation as homeowners brush the silt away from their houses.
In one house a skip outside is being filled full with one home’s possessions. Outside another a team of volunteers arrive on the scene armed with wellies and cleaning products ready in hand.
Even though the water that was window height days just days ago has gone, the watermark it has left high on the walls of the row of quaint period houses shows just how devastating it has been.
But for a place famous for its community spirit, even the worst flood to hit in 40 years is not going to break them.
On the street Chaz Ireland is with two other women and 17-year-old Ethan on his half term break.
Together, the group of friends are giving their hard-earned holiday time away to clean the homes of those that have lost entire ground floors of contents after the River Usk burst its banks and rushed up the street.
With Chaz, a housekeeper at the Bear Hotel, and friend Laura Prior, a former cleaner herself, there is no messing around when there are people in need.
Chaz said: “These are our neighbours, whether we know them or not so we just want to help our family.
“Yesterday we were just helping, ripping up, clearing, getting stuff up to the skips, letting them know that once the clearing it done there is a cleaning team available free just to help out.”
On Sunday drone images coming out of Crickhowell began to show just how bad the situation was.
By then, the Usk had reached 2.4m as a month’s worth of rain fell on the region in just 48 hours.
Living so close to the river, flooding is something the occupants of Bridge Street know all about, but never on this scale.
At the water levels gushed, Alastair Andrews had paying guests staying at his holiday let that had to be rescued after they locked the door from the inside.
He’s already cancelled six bookings he had planned but estimates it could take him another two months before he’s back in business.
Alastair, who lives up on higher ground in Crickhowell, said: “We’re just taking the whole kitchen out and then stripping the bathroom and just trying to dry it.
“I came down in the morning, the guests hadn’t left. They were stuck upstairs and they had locked themselves in from the inside and left the key in the door and we convinced them to leave and helped them out.
“A few hours later the water went down and left all the mud.
“I had to cancel six bookings initially for the next couple weeks and I think I’ll go back tonight and I’ll go back and cancel a load more.”
Luckily, Alastair is not alone. At his home is Zieowit Nowicki – known to his neighbours simply as Jim.
As a former Bridge Street resident himself, he has given up a week-long holiday in Poland to lend a hand and gut Alastair’s kitchen out – along with anyone else that needs his help.
He said: “I know Alastair as a customer from the shop. I noticed he was asking for help on social media and it’s kind of worked out so it’s no problem. I used to rent just opposite.
After leaving Alastair, Ziewot plans to help his old landlady get started on putting her home back together.
The 40-year-old said: “There’s no big or small jobs here, it all needs to be cleaned. Luckily I have a pair of hands so I’m just getting on with it. There are some friends of mine popping over as well.”
While some buildings are full of activity, others are hauntingly quiet.
One of those, none is more heartbreaking to look at than the renowned Bridge Inn – known across the world for its rustic dining and cosy atmosphere.
Howard Baker has been the landlord there for the past 21 years, but now there is nothing he can do except look at the devastation around him.
In his own words, it was like a “tsunami” hit when the water filled the cellar, rose up behind the bar and trapped Howard, wife Elaine and his dogs in the building’s first floor.
Gesturing around the room around him, he said: “We stayed as long we could because it was at the top of the stairs but there was still nothing in our bedroom where we all were.
“Later on that morning that’s when the fire brigade came down and said now we have to evacuate you.
“We have an old English sheepdog who is blind and they couldn’t get him out. They put my wife and Staffie on a boat and took them round to safe ground but I wouldn’t go without the dog.
“We kicked the window and in they were great, they got the dog out and got me out.”
Giving a tour round the building, Howard adds: “It blew those walls out, that door. It flew the front door off, that was in the car park.
“The support has been absolutely tremenous. Normally on a little flood my team would be struck straight into it mopping, cleaning and we would be trying to get open as soon as possible. The engineers have come up and they don’t know if this place is safe.
“It’s months and months of work.” Across the road Avenue Hairdo is just one of a number of businesses which has had ground to a halt.
This October, Wendy Price was planning a big 10-year anniversary party after opening her business back in 2010. Now she isn’t sure what will need to be done to get her salon back to that stage.
The Ebbw Vale resident was awake in the early hour of Sunday when a friend messaged her a video of the water pouring down New Road.
Understandably, it took her two days of mourning to work herself up to going down to the salon to see everything the damage with her own eyes.
Standing in a room empty of the make-up counters, hair dyes, salon chairs and sinks that filled it, the 55-year-old said: “I was distraught Monday night and Tuesday morning. I couldn’t face it.
“I didn’t expect when I came down that so much had been done. My colleague Caz came in and was overwhelmed and then an army of people came in. I think it’s going to be a while.
“A lot of hairdressers have reached out to me and people offering me space but it’s not just me it’s my colleague as well. I’m her employer, I’m not just going to leave her.”
With no flood insurance in place, it will be a costly process for Avenue Hairdo to get back on its feet.
Thankfully the touching gestures from clients desperate to help are making the daunting prospect a little more bearable. In one corner there is a kettle and glass bottle of milk, brought by one customer so at least Wendy can make a cup of tea.
When it comes to scraping the mud out of your living room or your treasured photo albums out on the skip, the smallest things can make the biggest difference.
As some afternoon sun breaks out briefly, a colourful van belonging to bookstore and cafe Bookish is doing the rounds giving out sandwiches and hot drinks to those who want it.
Such a generous gesture is only possible thanks to customers who have been putting up to £100 at a time behind the counter as part of a hanging coffee system used all over the world.
It means someone can buy one coffee and pay for three – leaving the other two to be given for free to others coming into the café.
Sitting down for a quick five minutes in the shop, deputy manager Pippa Barker said: “People are so generous. We had one lady from Essex in the first five minutes who donated £50, we had another who donated £100 and it just spiralled.
“Yesterday we went out twice, once in the morning with teas and coffees and once again later. One lady made up baguettes and sandwiches which we took out.
“It’s not much, I know it’s only cakes or coffees or sandwiches but people are so grateful.”
It turns out it’s not just Bookish helping out on the food side of things. Helen Williams from fellow cafe Zanmos is doing the same.
As a fairly new business, giving out hot meals to those escaping cabin fever in their homes is the least she feels she can do after the community welcomed her with open arms when she set up shop.
Helen, from Blaina, said: “It’s just awful isn’t it? People have just been so kind donating money. Everyday I am linking up with Emma from Bookish and going down and supplying food.
“We’ll keeping doing it. Because it’s going to be a long process. It could be weeks, months, until people get back on their feet again.
“It’s just for people to know we are out there thinking of them. Everyone has hard times and it’s just helping people out of hard times.
“Crickhowell has really opened our arms to us and been so supportive so we are just trying to pay that back and do what we can.”
While dozens of volunteers are on the move around Crickhowell, one art gallery has become the nucleus getting people organised and matching the countless items being donated to those that are in need of them.
As chair of the campaign group for the Corn Exchange that sprang to action to stop a national supermarket chain setting up store, it was only natural that artist Emma Bevan took on the gauntlet.
It was her idea to set up the Support for Crickhowell Flood Recovery Facebook group, to make sure everyone in need of help, and those offering it, are all connected.
Today, a quick scroll through the countless posts will see everything from a list of plumbers, electricians and carpenters willing to give their time to those offering a duvet or to set someone’s wifi back up.
There there are the places like The Rectory, who offered spaces for people with nowhere else to stay.
Emma, 49, said: “If there’s post all over Facebook not everyone would see them so I thought I would start the group, make it public and invite everyone in. Then everyone that is offering help and everyone who is requesting help can see what is going on “Everyone is doing something.” As the afternoon draws to an end the sun disappears and a light spell of rain showers down.
With talk of road closures ahead, and most work done for the day until insurers can visit the remaining houses, people begin to retreat to their homes.
But not Kyle Evans – a carpenter who has just returned to Crickhowell from a shift in Bath and is putting a few hours in back on Bridge Street.
Kyle, whose partner Laura has been out helping clean all day, said: “I’ve been working in Bath for the last few days and then helping out when I can. I pulled a guy’s kitchen out yesterday and I’m just putting a temporary door in today to separate the flood water from the living area.
“They have lost everything so I’m just helping as much as I can. I’ll be back in Bath at 5 in the morning.”