Flood heroes

My Flood Hero - Hannah Mills, Aged 5

We woke on Friday morning, after a night of rain, to find the level of Cheaton Brook rising over the road from our house. My husband, Michael, took Hannah to School at Kimbolton St James in Leominster. She was due to finish at 2.30pm that day - the last day of term.

When Michael returned home, he kept watching the level of the brook - it didn't stop rising! The brook was visited by the Highways Agency because the A49 drains water into the brook and they were checking that it was still doing exactly that. We carried on watching, Michael knew we were going to have problems!

I was due to go to my eldest daughter's leaving assembly at Luston Primary School at 1pm. I waited for my parents to arrive from Halesowen, West Midlands, to give me a lift. When they arrived, I went out to the car and saw the men from the Highways Agency putting out flood signs and looking at the brook again. As we travelled to Luston, the roads were getting flooded and I phoned Michael to tell him he should fetch Hannah early as the A49 wouldn't be open for much longer.

Michael arrived at Kimbolton St James at 1.30pm. He told the school about the flooding and they began phoning the parents to collect the children. We found out later that only three children were left at the school at the official finishing time. Hannah and Michael got home just before the A49 was completely covered.

Another house affected by the rising flood

Michael gave Hannah a drink and a biscuit, and had to leave her alone in the house, watching the TV, while he went back outside to put our sandbags. She did as she was told and never complained once.

I arrived home at 3.15pm. The road was already flooded, Cheaton Brook had broken its banks, luckily away from the house - and the water was still rising. Hay Lane, opposite the house, was flooded as well. The water was coming across the fields, down the hill from Kimbolton. I said goodbye to my parents, they took my eldest daughter, Alex, with them to visit her father, so that left us with Hannah and Michael's father, who is 87 years old!

We watched as the vehicles began to get stuck in the rising water, our neighbours from Hay Lane brought a tractor out to help them, Hannah, Michael and I watched as the water kept rising. We knew at some point that our defences were not going to hold, but there was nothing we could do about it.

Hannah and I went around the house picking up everything that was on the floor and putting it as high as we could. We didn't have to move much because we had been flooded three weeks before! But, Hannah helped, never complaining or being upset at what was about to happen again.

I can't tell you what time it happened, but our flood defences breached and the water began cascading down our driveway again. The water was so strong that nothing could hold it back, and it began to gather around the house. Michael and I had to go outside to try and keep it away from the house and make sure the sandbags were all in place. Hannah was told to stay inside and upstairs, which she did without argument. As the water rose even more, we had to move Michael's dad upstairs in the annex as the water began to get into his room. We had to put his possessions up high to try and save some of them. Then, all we could do was watch as the water in the house rose higher and higher.

All this time, Hannah was calm and she was watching the people trying to get through the water outside, at no time did she panic, or get upset. She was calmer than a lot of adults would have been.

We didn't know if we would have to be rescued. We decided to stay put as long as we could, but watched constantly just in case. We managed to feed ourselves and have a drink and Hannah continued to move from room to room with us to watch various drivers getting stuck. One lady, called Claire, asked if we could call her husband to let him know what had happened to her, I did so and luckily he, John, got back to me so I could let him know that she was ok.

I suppose it seemed like a bit of an adventure to Hannah. She didn't understand fully how dangerous it might have been, but she coped extremely well. It would have been a lot worse for us if she had been upset.

We managed to stay the night in the house and woke in the morning to find the water levels had dropped, and we had been left with a layer of sticky mud to get rid of. We still had some water in the living room and the playroom, but had to wait for the levels to drop further before we could clean up. Michael's dad had lost his room - it was completely soaked through. The layer of mud on the carpet was terrible, and some of his belongings had been ruined, including his bed! Luckily he was ok on the first floor of the annex.

Hannah then joined me in beginning to mop out the mud and water from the house. I got rid of the first lot of mud, then she mopped the floor behind me and together we moved the lot.

Hannah is my hero. Michael and I had a lot to deal with and without Hannah being as brave and helpful as she was, things would have been a lot more difficult. At the age of five, she dealt with the latest flood better than some adults would have, and I would like to say a big thank you to her. It has not been the best start to her first summer holidays from school and I'm sure she will never forget it!