Villagers fled from flash floods

[Boomer]

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=648520

Villagers fled from flash floods, on a night of chaos and confusion
By Ian Herbert, North of England Correspondent
21 June 2005

Thompsons the butchers has traded for three generations and more than 100 years from a shop perched precariously close to the river Rye in Helmsley, North Yorkshire.

But nothing could prepare the family for the night when "the roads turned to rivers" - as their local vicar described the village's flash floods yesterday.

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Local police confirmed that no one had died, and all those reported missing were accounted for. But homeowners who had watched as a month's worth of rain - 70mm - fell in three hours knew that the clean-up operation was only just beginning.

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Some locals muttered about the absence of a flood defence system in Helmsley. But Mr Thompson, like the Meteorological Office, knew that no such protection could have spared him his losses. The storms were so localised that no meteorologist could have predicted who would be struck. Helmsley seemed the last place to take a hit, since floods like this have not struck the market town since 1752, when 12 people were killed.

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Villagers in Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe close to Thirsk, were equally bewildered about the metamorphosis of the usually serene Sutton Beck into a raging torrent. Huge chunks of stone, some weighing up to half a ton, were ripped from the bridge and hurled into the road. Garden furniture was reduced to matchwood as the water poured in torrents through homes.