Section:GDN 1N PaGe:6 Edition Date:190803 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 2/8/2019 18:28 cYanmaGentaYellowbla
- The Guardian Saturday 3 August 2019
(^6) National
Whaley Bridge
‘I can’t believe
that I am an
evacuee’
Life on the
edge of a
town in crisis
above in the previous 48 hours,
threatening the structural integrity
of the reservoir wall.
Yesterday, with conditions still
severe but easing and police warning
of an “unprecedented, fast-moving,
emergency situation”, the residents
were taking stock.
Among them was Jade Judge who,
along with her husband, Jan, and
their daughters, Skye, 19 months,
and Storm, seven months, had
ended up in her brother’s one-bed
fl at up the road in New Mills.
“I never thought I would say in my▼ Helen and John Derham with family and
neighbours watch a helicopter fl y past their
home near the Toddbrook reservoir
PHOTOGRAPH: CHRISTOPHER THOMOND/THE GUARDIAN▲ Attempts continue to repair the dam structure at Toddbrook reservoir after
its structural integrity was damaged by heavy rainfall PHOTOGRAPH: YUI MOK/PA‘I have a lot of my
own stuff and didn’t
want to go. The police
told us if we didn’t,
they’d arrest us, so I
thought I better had’Dan Curley
Manager of the Cock pubHelen Pidd
North of England editorF
riday dawned early
for those residents of
Whaley Bridge who
had not been forced
to fl ee their homes the
previous day. Their
5am alarm clock was a Chinook
helicopter hovering overhead, laden
with huge plastic bags of aggregate
to drop on the damaged dam which
was threaten ing the Derbyshire
town’s existence.
“It was like Good Morning
Vietnam,” said Edwina Currie, the
former Conservative MP who has
lived in Whaley Bridge, population
6,000, since 2012.
In spite of a poor night’s sleep, she
was resplendent in jazzy leggings,
fur-lined Hunter wellies and a bright
blue bum bag, trying to get a look
at what was going on at Toddbrook
reservoir.
Every fi ve minutes a helicopter
arrived, descending carefully to
almost ground level to shore up
the dam which was so damaged
that police warned there was a
“substantial threat to life” were it
to fail.
A bout a thousand people were
forced to fl ee their homes in the
town on Thursday after a month-
and-a-half ’s rain fell on the hillsРЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS