Flood heroes

My business partner and myself were travelling back up from the M4 junction 15 at Swindon. We got here at about 3:15pm.

As soon as we left the motorway, the traffic was horrendous with it taking us around three hours to cover about seven miles due to the A417 being already heavily flooded in a number of places.

Traffic on M5 at Strensham Services

Our original route was to take the M5 from the A417 at Gloucester and head back to Malvern via the Upton-upon-Severn junction.

It soon became evident thanks to the constant updates on the BBC (Hereford and Worcester & Gloucester) that the M5 would be a crazy move.

Based on this we decided to risk driving into Gloucester and try to get onto the ring road.

I suppose it would have been around 7.30pm or 8.00pm by now and the city was just gridlock.

We finally got to Maisemore and negotiated a few more heavily flooded areas, but finally got stuck at Staunton (so near, yet so far).

A lady on the side of the road, who had left her car and started out on foot, suggested trying Corse Lawn, Rye Cross, Castlemorton and into Malvern that way.

Car abandoned

We did quite well but couldn't get all the way to Rye Cross because of a four or five foot flood beneath a bridge.

We therefore doubled back and headed to Upton upon Severn in the hope to get as near as possible, before dumping the car and walking the rest of the way to Ryall Grove where my father lives.

Unfortunately at Longdon (by where the old Plough Pub once was) the water was again up to the roof of two cars that were stranded in the flood in the dip in the road.

Based on this we turned the car around (once more) and headed back to the Hunters Inn back along the road.

We had passed this five minutes previous and the car park was full (and I mean full) of stranded people's cars.

The JCB ferry

The landlord and staff at the Hunters were absolutely amazing. We hadn't eaten all day and as by now it was already 10pm but they still provided us with free pizza.

Fancy a slice?

The most incredible thing was that from the moment we arrived at the Hunters, the landlord spent the whole time ferrying stranded people through the floods to 'dry land' or home on his JCB/tractor.

We were to be the last journey which would have been around 2am, but upon returning from the previous journey he announced that the flood in the village had subsided and the road was now passable.

I'm not sure how many people he would have ferried around (excuse the pun), or home but I should imagine it was 30 - 40 people.

On top of this, some people from the village were putting other stranded motorists up for the night.

I also heard another guy ran a couple we met back to Holly Green in the back of his van.

All in all a excellent community spirit led by the landlord of the Hunters Inn of Buckbury, Longdon.