I remember waking that morning and hearing the persistent rain outside and saying to my partner if it carries on like that it’s going to flood. I’m not sure where that came from as I’ve never experienced flooding before.

I had to go to a meeting that morning in east hull. We had a team coming over from belgium to talk about our work. I had to go to my house on Ella Street first to pick some things up. I remember the puddles which were normally around the drains were too wide to jump across and I got wet feet. Walking down the passage to my house on the square I remember walking carefully as the water was more than a puddle but my feet got wet anyway. Half an hour later I left my house and the water was inches deep. I got to Ella
Street and saw the road was completely covered. I’d never seen it like this. I waded towards my car and met a neighbour who had just parked up; she said you’re not going anywhere its in chaos roads are shut, forget trying to drive.

I felt really bad about not going to the meeting but it seemed stupid to leave home.

At this point, we saw a woman running up squealing ‘quick, quick we need to make sandbags’. I couldn’t work out who it was, she was running with her head down and her coat over her head. It turned out to be my friend who had returned from work and remembered there was sand left over from the Ella Street festival which had been 2 days before. She said we needed to make sandbags immediately. I thought she was being a bit melodramatic but went into her house with her and and started to make calls to work explaining where I was.

My friend was saying that it was no time to make phone calls, there was no time to lose! I remember saying a couple of minutes isn’t going to make a difference. It probably did.

We both went to our respective linen cupboards/washing piles to find spare pillow cases. We then went down the street with a bucket and proceeded to fill it with sand to fill up these pillow cases. This wasn’t a very efficient procedure but a friend came from down the road then and rescued us by getting his wheel barrow. I remember the houses at either side of our square looking vulnerable - the water was rising really fast. We made a point of putting down bags to hold the flow to their houses. We did the same for other peoples houses – friends out at work. But I’m not sure how effective the bags were really.

I remember going back to my partner’s house to get some wellies (it was a bit late as I was wet to my waist already). His end of Victoria Avenue was not affected and he was so deep into his work he didn’t seem to take in how soaked I was! I went back to Ella Street and noticed that there were more and more cars and vans coming down the street, driving too fast - water was rising at such a rate that it was causing the water to become waves washing up to the doors of the houses. To our uninformed selves this seemed to be an issue and they were soaking people on the pavement as well.

At this point we started thinking about shutting the road. It appeared to be a through way, people trying to get from Chanterlands and Princes Avenue to Newland. We weren’t sure if it was legal so we went to look for a policeman who basically said do what you need to do. By this time there were a number of people on the street making sandbags. It was a very comradely atmosphere and some of us went to the point where Ella met Salsbury Street and started to utilise various items of signage that were being used for the new building at the bottom of Ella Street. What really shouldn’t surprise me but did was the way people were determined to go through, dismantling the barriers and driving through regardless of our protests. Some people did turn back and go the other way. As non-professional road blockers, we realised it probably would have been a good idea to block the Victoria Avenue end of Salisbury Street. This came home to us at the point where we had a gridlock situation with a crane, a lorry and a number of cars backed up!

We started to move the barrier further down the road which worked better. A reporter from Viking radio turned up and wanted to interview us as we appeared to be taking ‘community action’!

Eventually we realised the situation had all gone beyond our control and there wasn’t much we could do so we went back home to check our houses.

I have a memory of my friend moaning about her floral wellies leaking. She not only had blitz spirit but also looked the part with her head scarf talking of checking the wireless for updates – she’s only 36!

By this time a lot of people had returned home from work. And it seemed like the best idea was to go to the pub. There ended up about 16 of us in Zest holed up there for a few hours with pizza and wine - going back to our homes periodically to check them for flooding.

In some ways, it was a lovely day. People coming together and helping each other. But I remember someone saying about the lad on the dying in Hessle and how sobering that was. That we really were in the middle of a mini disaster for the city. I remember my partner came and joined us later on and was surprised that he was wet up to his knees. He really hadn’t taken it in when I’d gone round!

Since then, it appears I was lucky with my house although my neighbour has recently had to have building work done as a result of the flood and it’s likely my house is affected too. Many of my friends have been affected since and some have had to move out of their homes. I know many people who are still not back in their homes. The stress of not knowing when you can go home must be horrendous and I think we really need to continue to support each other in our communities. Hopefully one good thing is that many people are now closer to their neighbours.

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