MORE FLOOD HEARTACHE HITS WALES
HEAVY rainfall caused more flooding in parts of Wales yesterday.
In Cardiff, the River Ely burst its banks again and flooding affected train lines.
Amber and yellow weather warnings were in place for parts of the country, including areas recently flooded during Storm Dennis. More than 50mm of rain fell in some parts.
A lorry driver had to be rescued from his cab when his vehicle got stuck on a flooded road.
The bakery van was stranded after the Ely broke its banks at St Fagans.
A rescue team was filmed wading out to the Brakes lorry with a boat attached to a rope. They got the driver out of his cab through a window and brought him on the boat to safety. He was taken away from the area by police.
The road was closed near the railway crossing, but not before the lorry got stuck in about two feet of floodwater.
The entrance to St Fagans National Museum of History was also flooded.
Another lorry had to be towed out of floodwater by a tractor in Welshpool.
Landlord Huw Jones has had his pub for 16 years but has never known a year like it. Once again he was stranded upstairs in his Peterstonsuper-Ely pub, the Sportsman’s Rest, which flooded for the third time in three weeks.
He was waiting there for the water to recede after a group of his regulars came to help him move some of the stock, tables and chairs out of the floodwater at 5.45am yesterday.
“I woke up early and realised that we had been flooded again,” he said.
“I couldn’t believe it was happening again. There is a group of regulars who I can call on, and when I phoned they leapt out of bed and came down to help me move some of the stock and the furniture. They have been fantastic, but it is starting to get embarrassing now as I have had to call on them three times in three weeks.
“I have been here for 16 years and never known a year like it. It just seems to never end.”
Yesterday morning there was about two feet of water in the pub, slightly less than the 2ft 6in that flooded in on February 29, when Storm Jorge brought heavy rain to Wales.
That day locals brought Huw and his pub manager bacon sandwiches and winched them in when the pair got stranded upstairs.
Huw says: “We were still trying to dry the pub out from two weeks ago. The assessors had been in and the walls were so wet it didn’t even register on their equipment. All the skirting boards had to come off and we were trying to get the walls dried out.”
The pub flooded on September 28, February 15 and 29, and again yesterday.
Claire Morgan, who lives nearby, said: “This is our third flood in three weeks. We didn’t know this was coming. This came out of the blue. Normally we get a phone call but we woke up to this and it was a surprise.
“We have lived here since 2002. We had a deeper flood about 10 years ago, but I have never known us to have so many in such a short space of time.
“It is disruptive, but it is not damaging to us. It is the people in the pub in
the village that I feel sorry for.”
An accident involving two cars blocked one lane eastbound on the M4 between junction 35 Pencoed and junction 34 Miskin.
Cameras showed one of the cars stranded in lane three heading from Bridgend to Cardiff.
Further along on the eastbound side, one lane was closed because of a broken-down box van just before junction 29.
There was flooding on the A473 at Talbot Green between the Diamond Centre and Coedcae Lane.
The road at Danycoed, in Ystrad Rhondda, was under water by 6pm on Monday, which was the second time in the last four weeks, according to one resident.
Keith Gregory said a council van to pump water was in the area by 9pm, and as far as he was aware no houses were affected.
He said he knocked on his neighbours’ doors to move their cars as they were close to being under water.
Yesterday morning Keith said the drains appeared to be blocked and there was debris left on the road.
The A483 at Builth Wells was closed because of flooding between the town and Beulah and there were delays for motorists trying to get to the M4 from Magor.
Natural Resources Wales said it was keeping a close eye on high tides around the country.
Yesterday a spokeman said: “High tide at Newport is expected to reach 7.4 metres at 8pm today. Due to the predicted levels for the next high tides this alert will remain in force until at least Friday morning’s high tide.”
Commuters faced disruption in last night’s rush hour after flooding shut part of the railway line between Pencoed and Cardiff Central.
In other parts of the UK, the Environment Agency issued more than 30 flood warnings and 150 flood alerts, with heavy rain predicted to affect areas of the country badly hit by last month’s storms.
Flood barriers were being deployed to protect Hereford, three weeks after a record high on the River Wye of 6.11 metres – more than two metres above the level which leads to minor flooding in the city.
The Environment Agency said the River Wye was expected to peak in Hereford last night at around five metres.
Meanwhile, the River Severn in Shrewsbury is predicted to rise to levels which may cause flooding in the town today.
But there is some respite from the rain in the forecast.
Met Office meteorologist Marco Petagna said: “Although there’s going to be a lot of rain in the next 24 hours, beyond that it doesn’t look like any one particular place will be in the firing line to see persistent, heavy, rain.”