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Cleaning up in Alhampton the morning after

The worst affected areas were around Crewkerne, Ilminster, Shepton Mallet and Wells.

Flash floods also hit Castle Cary, Evercreech and Alhampton where BBC Somerset editor Simon Clifford lives.

He witnessed two flash floods within four hours of each other. This is his account:

Thursday 9pm:

“I opened my back door, and was hit by a four feet wall of water!” Just one of the stories doing the rounds in my village after the River Allam burst its banks last night.

Alhampton hasn’t seriously flooded for 45 years, and especially not since flood prevention work was carried out, not, that is, until last night.

I heard a strange noise whilst doing some work on my laptop, looked out the window and saw something odd on the road outside.

It wasn’t until I was actually outside though that I saw what was happening. The road had disappeared and the River Allam was running down it instead. It was shocking.

There was a tremendous rushing sound as the river swept through the village, I couldn’t even hear my neighbours Linda and John shouting from just the other side of the road…or should that say the other side of the river.

I put on some wellies and waded out to see if anyone needed help – the fire brigade had arrived and was soon pumping out the home of one of our neighbours, Andy Booth.

He told me he was alright until a 4x4 drove past and sent a tidal wave through his house. He said he now had to tackle a foot of water inside.

A quick check around my own home showed the garden was slightly flooded but otherwise everything was ok – and the river level wasn’t getting any higher which was a relief.

I live on a junction in the village and two out of the three roads were totally flooded. Fire officers said homes down the far end of the village were hit badly.

Friday 6.30am:

It’s the day after the night before. I’ve just walked around the village and seen the scale of the mess. The roads are covered in a brown sludge, you can hear pumps going as people get the water out of their homes – and then you come to Mill Lane.

“I saw some water on the kitchen floor and thought something was wrong and we had a leak somewhere,” he said.

“Then we were just inundated – the house is shoulder-deep in river water now. It is a total mess. When I opened my kitchen door I was hit by a wall of water four feet deep – and it just kept coming. There was nothing I could do.”

Local farmer and owner of the Maryland cheese company Paul Barber told me the floods were incredibly localised.

“Ditcheat has had next to nothing, it’s all come your way,” he said.

The fire service took 999 calls every few seconds

“I got a call late last night from one of my farmers saying he was surrounded by water. I came down to help let some cows out and that’s when I heard it – you couldn’t see anything but you could hear the wall of floodwater coming.”

It wasn’t just people in danger – Paul Barber owns the hugely successful training yard just up the road run by champion trainer Paul Nicholls. I asked him about his horses which at the moment are kept in fields alongside the river.

“They are too smart to get caught,” he said. “We’ve checked on them and they are alright – the water came from two sides but they are ok.”

The extent of the flooding is plain this morning in the village – at one end it is bone dry, at the other four bars of a five bar gate were covered showing how deep the floodwater came.

For me it was the second flash flood in a day. I had been shopping in Castle Cary when torrential rain came down earlier in the day.

Thursday 5pm:

I left my kids with my wife in Martin’s shop and walked the half mile to pick up my car and collect them. I was wet but nothing remarkable. By the time I returned there was a foot of water running through the town.

By the time everyone was in the car it was two feet and the road had disappeared. I jumped out of the car into water up to my knees and rushed to help barricade Bailey Hill bookshop which was flooding quickly. Dave Marsh runs his own hardware store next door and he threw me a couple of large tomato “grow bags” which I used to stop the flooding.

By the time I had finished the water had just started to recede and 20 minutes or so later it was like it had never happened – really bizarre.