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Your Name
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Phil Harrison
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Log: 22-10-atl-a-ph
I’m the caretaker at Tilbury Primary. We came to work the morning of the first flood (15th June) and saw water coming down the main corridor from what is now the disabled toilets. Water was coming up through the drains. It flooded the corridor, all the carpets. We were all frantically trying to stop it, or at least contain it, which we did.
A week later was the big flood – we had water coming up in three areas: the nursery, the library, and again in the main corridor, but that time it just kept coming and coming. We had to cancel the school and turn the kids away, send them back home. We announced it on the radio, as many other schools did, that we were closing. The water just kept coming and coming and we had to ring the fire brigade to help us pump out the boiler house. We had a local drainage company that helped us with the drains – he brought a pump in. we had a fire engine with two pumps pumping it out. It got to about 6 or 7 o’clock that evening, and we had to switch all the electrics off.
So we were pumping out the boilerhouse until about 4 o’clock. There were only two classrooms that weren’t hit. It all had to be fully renovated.
Then I got a phonecall from my brother to ask if I could spare any time, because he was rescuing a lad that was stuck in a drain, and at the same time the fire brigade that was with us got a call to attend that lad, so they pulled away from us and myself and one of the teacher’s aid, we went down to see if we could help. Unfortunately he died.
Then I found out that my mother’s house was flooded while she was on holiday. When we’d left the lad, cos we couldn’t help there, we went round to check on my sister’s and they said that my mother’s house was under a foot of water. So we were usy sorting her hosue out. She was due home that weekend, so we only had a few days to strip everything out and make the house half-way decent.
My mother lives on her own, and she was lucky that we were there to make sure she was sorted and alright. But those elderly people who don’t have anyone to turn to – don’t know who to get in, no idea what they’re entitled to from insurance companies. My mother got new floorboards, staircase, new patio doors a re-wire, new radiators. Her best frined next door but one dodn’t get floor joists, they put chipboard down instead of floorboarde. She didn’t get a rewire, the new kitchen was not fitted properly – she didn’t get what she was entitled to. And she didn’t know any different.
Then it was just trying to get the school back to normal. We got two lads in from the council to help us they were a big help, getting all the carpets out. All the plaster had to be knocked off every wall, a metre high and replastered. We got new window fromae, doors in some of the classrooms.
Then there was all the furniture we lost, because it was all contaminated water. It was a massive job. Everybody mucked in and helped. Which they do in situations like that. You can’t do it on your own. Luckily we had the summer holidays and by the end of the holidays, most of the work had been done.
Over the next year there was a lot of stuff needed doing. Even today, we’re still trying to get the drains sorted.
All the schools were really badly hit, and I think only Sidney Smith school was insured. The council had to pay for all the renovations. I’d hate to put a cost on it.
Everything had to be put in storage, and rather than have big storage bills, we decided to get it all boxed andput in the hall. so we got a removal company to box it all up and label it and the whole of the hall was filled with boxes. It saved a load of money in storage, and it freed up the classrooms so you could get in to decorate and do the floors. The whole school was decorated top to bottom. That was a job in itself.
It took about 10 days to empty all the boxes and put stuff back in the classrooms.
It was very stressful – you didn’t know what job to do first. You knew what had to be done – everything – but it was getting a timetable, there was that many people working here – it was just manic.
It was the first time I’d ever done anything on that scale.
There’s nothing you can do – you can’t fight water. It came up out of the floor.
My garden was underwater, and I thought we’d got away with it, but I’ve seen caravans appearing up the street, and they’re coming next week to check under the floor.
My mate who is in drainage said it was a mixture of heavy rain, unusually high tides and certainly in Hessle, there was a new housing estate being built. They’d capped off the drain so they could put their drains onto the loop, which made all the water back up – the drains had nowhere to run to. It was the Great Western Drain as well. The one that the lad died in. it was a build up of things like that, and the chances of something happening like that again are remote. Hopefully.
FLOOD STORY CATEGORIES & main themes
How a disaster brings out the best and worst in people
1) FLOOD DAY
GENERAL FLOOD STORIES
SCHOOLS
RESCUING PEOPLE
DEATH OF MICHAEL BARNETT
WHY FLOOD HAPPENED
2) AFTERMATH/CLEAN UP
6) STRESS/LOSS
POSITIVE OUTCOMES
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