‘Like a sea out there’: flooded Somerset residents wonder how water can be managed

In the early hours, the Wade family’s boxer puppy began barking. Thinking it needed to be let out, they traipsed downstairs and opened the back door – to be greeted not by their neat garden but an expanse of water.“It was like a sea out there,” said James Wade. Over the coming hours the water crept into their home on a modern estate in Taunton, forcing James, his wife, Faye, and their three children, six, 11 and 12, out and into emergency accommodation.“We have been here for 13 years and this has never happened before. Even during the huge floods of 2014 we were dry.”The Wade family are one of about 50 households that Somerset council estimates have been flooded this week as Storm Chandra battered the UK.With another Met Office yellow warning for rain coming into force for parts of the south-west of England on Thursday, the council fears more homes and businesses will go underwater, and has declared a major incident.‘This has never happened before,’ said James Wade, who had to go into emergency accommodation with his wife, Faye, and their three children. Photograph: Jim Wileman/The GuardianThough the Wades’ home is close to Black Brook, the stream did not breach its banks. The water that hit them and their neighbours in the early hours of Tuesday is thought to have bubbled up through obstructed drains.“On one hand, it seems so simple,” said Wade. “They need to keep the drains clean. But I understand that there is a cost issue and with climate change, this heavy rain is the new norm.”A little farther east, people in the market town of Ilminster were mopping up and preparing for the next bout of rain.Allison Bushby, 59, a craftsperson who lives on a residential park at the edge of the town, said she was woken by a flood alarm at 1am on Tuesday. The water in her small garden was thigh-high, and she left at 6am when she was still able to pick her way out.Flooding is not unusual here. They were hit exactly this time last year. The water piles in from all over the place – farmers’ fields, a culvert, drains.“I’m prepared now,” Bushby said. She habitually keeps her belongings in chunky storage boxes, which she moves on to her counters when the rain starts falling. “They’re a godsend.”Allison Bushby said she was prepared for flooding on the residential park where she lives – it had happened at the same time last year. Photograph: Jim Wileman/The GuardianWhen the Guardian visited on Wednesday, Bushby had just returned home and was baking a cake for the park staff. “They’re so good when this sort of thing happens,” she said. “The whole community pulls together wonderfully.”Mike Rigby, the lead member for economic development, planning and assets on Somerset council, said the topography of Somerset – much of it low-lying and surrounded by high ground including Exmoor and the Blackdown Hills – made it susceptible to flooding.The water poured off the hills into places where people live and work. “Because of that geography, we have a massive risk,” Rigby said.Places that had not flooded before – such as the Wades’ street – had been hit this time. “We’ll have to investigate that.”Rigby said the council tackled drains “reactively”. He said: “When they block and we find that out from our own observations or from reports from the public, we’ll go out and unblock them, but what we’d like to do, frankly, is to have a proactive function.“What we really need is a dedicated pot, a hypothecated grant from the [UK] government to keep the drainage system properly maintained to a better standard.”He said it was important to earmark that money for this job so it didn’t get “sucked up into the vast black hole of social care”.Extreme rainfall is becoming more common and more intense in many parts of the world because of human-caused climate breakdown. This month leaders in Cornwall and Devon, which have been hit by the storms Goretti and Ingrid as well as Chandra, have claimed they need more money to bolster resilience.Rigby said: “The really intense rainfall we’re now seeing means we’re going to have to think more about how we manage water.”‘This needs to be managed locally by people who understand the moors,’ said Bryony Sadler. Photograph: Jim Wileman/The GuardianThe crisis in Somerset is not over. On the Somerset Levels, a low-lying area of moors, rivers and ditches, residents who had not yet been flooded were anxiously watching water levels.Bryony Sadler, a mum, hairdresser and spokesperson for the Flooding on the Levels Action Group (Flag), took the Guardian on her dog-walk and pointed to vast stretches of water that were not there earlier this week.The area made headlines for weeks in 2014 when there was severe flooding. Since then there has been investment in dredging the rivers and in pumping equipment. “But it’s as if they think they have done that. Tick. That will placate them,” Sadler said. “This needs to be managed locally by people who understand the moors, not faraway officials.”Sadler is worried for the animals as well as the people who live in this nature-rich environment. She pointed out a deer picking its way through flood water. “What will happen to them? And to the hedgehogs and worms?”As day broke on Wednesday the water level at the Northmoor main drain close to Sadler’s home was 4.04 metres (13ft 3in). By 1pm it was at 4.14 metres. The Environment Agency judges that property can be flooded when it goes above 4.13 metres.Sadler was working out how to move her dogs, chickens, teenagers and mother if the water continued to rise. “It’s beautiful living out here most of the time,” she said. “An amazing place, amazing people, but at the moment it feels a little depressing.”