'The sofa's floating, downstairs is ruined'

A man who was trapped on the first-floor of his home due to floodwater said the entire downstairs of his house was ruined.

Handyman Andy Matthews, who lives in Newton Poppleford, Devon, was badly affected by Storm Chandra on Tuesday.

Matthews, who lives near the River Otter, said rescue teams helped him and his dog Lokie escape through an upstairs window due to 3ft (91.4cms) of flood water on the ground floor of his home.

"The sofa's floating, yeah everything downstairs is ruined every single thing," he said. It comes as a yellow rain warning is in place on Thursday until 03:00 GMT Friday and covers areas of Cornwall, Devon, and Dorset.

There is also an alert warning homeowners to "be prepared" for possible flooding until Friday for the Rivers Otter and Sid as well as the Exmouth area.

The Environment Agency said: "Properties and low lying land and roads close to the river remain at risk. The main areas of concern are Lympstone, Exmouth, Budleigh Salterton, Honiton, Ottery St Mary, Sidbury, Sidford and Sidmouth.

"We are closely monitoring the situation."

A "danger to life" Severe Flood Warning was in place for Ottery St Mary on Tuesday when the River Otter reached its highest ever recorded level.

Matthews said it would be weeks before he would be able to move back into his home.

He said he was woken by his burglar alarm early on Tuesday, and added: "I came down the stairs to this 3ft of water in the house...I just waded through it to see what was going on".

"I just thought well there's absolutely nothing I can do, you can't stop it," he added.

"It was all coming in through the windows, so no amount of towels would ever have stopped it anyway.

"My computer, that was underwater, and I was going to do my tax return yesterday."

Matthews said Lokie was barking at the window when he saw a number of people "all roped to the back of the garden".

He added: "They said 'the police want you to vacate the property' and I said well 'do I have to?' They said 'yeah safety reasons we need to get you out'."

He said he passed Lokie to the rescue teams, while he was put into safety gear and climbed out the window.

"We walked through the garden then we had to climb another ladder up over the bridge to get onto the road," he added.

"I said 'can't we just go up the drive' and they said 'no, no it's too deep and too dangerous'.

"I've never had it that bad, I've had floods but never anything like that."

He said the next course of action was to clean the place up and get all of the electrics working, adding "it's pretty messy".

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