Flood heroes

Our experience of the flood in Upton was no great deal; our biggest problem was getting there. The journey started in North Wales at around 10am on Friday 20 July. The weather there was quite reasonable, but the closer we got to the Midlands, the worse it became.

From Craven Arms, it took us from about 2pm until 6.30pm to reach Ledbury, after some horrendous flooded roads and continuous detours. After trying to use the A449 towards British Camp after leaving Ledbury, and finding that totally flooded, we turned around and attempted to use the A438 past Eastnor and found that also totally flooded, so we went back to Ledbury to spent the night in the Feathers Hotel.

Saturday morning at 6.30am we managed to get to Upton via Eastnor after listening to BBC Hereford and Worcester for the road reports. I must say your radio was excellent, giving constant reports on the road conditions. We would not have liked to have to manage without it, and now have it in the car radio memory for when we are in this area.

The flat that we rent on New Street had no problems with the flooding, apart from the garage being about 18 inches under water. We had to drive through fairly deep water past the old fire station to get there, but that was no real problem. But Saturday night was when the water started rising and I moved the car to higher ground - a good thing I did, as the residents car park ended up under water.

Rescue boat

By Sunday morning we were surrounded by water, which was no real threat to us as we're on the second floor. The ground floor flats also escaped literally only by a few inches. The old houses across on the other side of New Street were badly hit and had a lot of water in them.

But my nomination for Mercia Inshore Search & Rescue is because we saw some of their rescues and heard from our neighbour just how long they had worked that night, performing more than 80 rescue operations before anyone arrived to help them. All these people are volunteers and do not get paid for putting themselves at risk to help so many others in the floods. They have to put up with abuse from people who do not like the road barriers being put up, and some are even stupid enough to ignore them and push through! They rely totally on donations and are always in need of more money, yet without their dedication and sense of community responsibility, an awful lot of people would not be here today to tell the tale.

We had first hand experience of their help a couple of weeks ago when our son fell backwards in the engine room of our boat that we were working on in the river of Upton. We thought he had badly injured his back, and called for their help. They came and checked him - they all have good first aid training, and decided it was a hospital job. They went back to the marina to pick up two paramedics, brought them back to the boat, then took our son back to the marina where the ambulance was waiting to take him to Worcester hospital. He had a cracked vertebrae - which was bad enough - but if the casting on the throttle he had landed on had not sheered, his back would have! A close call for him and many - many thanks to Mercia Inshore Search & Rescue.