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'BIBLICAL FLOODS'
Family devastated as flash floods leave 100-year-old OAP’s London home submerged ‘like the Titanic’ under 3ft of water
A FAMILY have been left "devastated" after torrential rain flooded their home under three feet of water.
The bottom flat of the four-floor home in Maida Vale, North West London, was swamped as water poured in last night "like the Titanic".
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They waded through wastewater gushing from the toilet into the home where four generations of the same family - including a 100-year-old great great grandmother - live.
Carpets, furniture and clothes have been ruined, with a bed floating in a submerged room as biblical flash floods battered the capital.
Precious family photos belonging to Lilian Humphrey - who turned 100 on Sunday - as well as her wheelchair, were also destroyed.
The family were "petrified" as rain hammered down around 7pm with a neighbour in tears raising the alarm after his home was flooded.
Lilian's granddaughter Sophie Yerby, 32, told The Sun: "It was rising quite quickly. We were really frightened to think, "What are we going to do, how are we going to get her out?"
"The fireman came and he said, 'stay put, no one is allowed to move'. It was only until our neighbour knocked and said his flat had been flooded.
"We all ran downstairs and there was about two feet of water by then. It was just pouring in.
"It was like Titanic, when the water gushes through. It was awful. The water was coming up through the drains.
"The whole house is destroyed. We have had to throw all the beds, my nan's wheelchair, all of her valuable photos, all her husband's birth death certificates,everything.
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"Everything valuable was downstairs on that floor. We were petrified. It was rising and rising. It was rapid. It was gushing.
";Everyone was in a panic. I was on the phone to 999. It took 20 minutes to get through to them. When I got through I got put through to West Midlands.
"One fire engine came to the street and it started to clear all the drains. Then the drains started to go down slowly. If it wasn't for them coming after about an hour it would have risen dramatically."
A month's worth of rain fell in an hour last night with London Fire Brigade inundated with over 1,000 calls of flooding.
The family have had to pull up the carpet and wooden floors after they were saturated.
There are now fears that rats will invade homes affected by the flooding after sewage seeped from drains and toilets.
has been set up to help the family and a neighbour who has also been hit by the flooding.
The family received a birthday video from England star Jordan Henderson for England fan Lilian's 100th birthday on the day of the Euro 2020 final.
Shocking photos and videos show their devastated home after the flooding - just a day after the birthday celebrations.
Sophie's mum, Vicki Yerby, 68, who is one of Lilian's carers, lives in the bottom three-bedroom flat with her mum in the upstairs maisonette.
The family have had to dump their wrecked belongings - including new children's teddy bears from Hamley's - in the street as they clear out the rain-ruined home.
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Vicki said: "Apparently, all the drains have been up and there's rats and mice coming up.
"It's devastating. My mum has lived in this road for 100 years. This has never, ever happened.
"We have got photos from the last 50 years and personal letters that we have had to throw away.
"All the carpets have had to come up. Under that is wooden flooring that we had before.
"We have had to pull everything up to the concrete to dry it out. It has risen up to the wallpaper. We have had to pull that off.
'AT LEAST WE DIDN'T DROWN'
"There's nothing down there now. All my clothes, everything, has gone. The beds are all gone, they are all out the front of the house.
";My granddaughter who is seven was petrified. She was distraught and crying.
"It's unbelievable. At least we didn't drown. The frightening thing was we knew it was sewage water coming up from the toilet as well.
"If any of us got cuts we were literally wading through it. We were saying, 'Be careful. You have to be careful of any sewage water going into any cuts.
"The water was pumping up out of the toilet. It was like the Titanic. The water was pouring up through the cracks of the doors.
"I went into my bedroom wading through there any my whole bed was floating like the furniture on the Titanic."
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Belongings salvaged from the bottom-floor flat are piled in the first floor, with the family still unable to turn on the electricity.
Last night's flooding has hit every home on the street, as well as local schools, the family said.
Meanwhile another family living on the Lancaster West Estate - right across the street from the Grenfell Tower - were forced to flee their home with just the clothes on their back.
Joanna O'Connor told The Sun: “I was leaving work at about 5.30pm and my son called in utter distress, screaming and crying saying ‘mum the house is flooding.’
'WE'RE RETRAUMATISED'
“He was in his bedroom at the front of the building and our neighbour started banging on our front door, telling us to get out.
“The neighbour is a family friend of one of the people who escaped from the Grenfell Tower, so of course she was really distressed and panicked that people were still inside their homes.
“My son said he got up to answer the door and saw that our back door which was glass was covered in black water. He was in total shock and couldn’t understand what was happening.
“The whole area was covered in water and sewage. Drains were just backing out water like fountains, some were going as high as 4ft streams of water just shooting up.
“You just know immediately that your house is destroyed and everything you own is just gone.
“I’m a single parent, and I just got a job six months ago after the pandemic and we were just getting back on our feet.
“We had just bought a new TV for the football, and had just gotten a new dishwasher. We’ve lost everything”
You just know immediately that your house is destroyed and everything you own is just gone.
Joanna O'Connor
“Our next door neighbour is an elderly lady with diabetes and a heart condition and we could see was just sitting on a chair in her house surrounded by sewage water because she couldn't move.
“Another neighbour’s wife was giving birth in hospital as her home was being destroyed.
“Now she has no home to return to and they already have three young children.”
The flooding has brought back terrible memories for residents of the estate, who lost family members and friends to the tragic Grenfell Tower fire four years ago.
Joanna added: “My son used to go to the school underneath the Grenfell Tower and he lost six of his friends in the fire. We’ve been having therapy for PTSD ever since.
“This has retraumatised us. Yesterday was what it was like that night. We’re all standing around. It's the same neighbours. It's us again supporting each other and no one's coming to help.
“We’re calling the police, we're calling fire, we're calling the council and no one was coming. I think the council turned up at about 7.30pm.”
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A Kensington and Chelsea Council spokesperson said: “Our priority is to make sure residents who have been affected by last night’s flooding have the help they need. Overnight we placed 120 residents in emergency accommodation and are making emergency repairs today.
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“We are making welfare calls to vulnerable residents and have set up a centre at The Curve in North Kensington where Council officers are on hand to support people affected.”
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