Two hours was all it took to turn a pretty Cornish village into a riverbed. As police divers searched wrecked cars and the smashed stone houses that a freak wall of floodwater had tossed and torn with indifferent cruelty, the residents of Boscastle yesterday began to put nature back in its place.
When they paused for breath and laid down their brooms, rakes and spades, local people and holidaymakers reflected on the apocalyptic storm and the remarkable rescue effort that saved dozens of lives on Monday afternoon.
Police, firefighters and coastguards had still not discovered any fatalities last night.
The sky that had turned black returned to an innocuous blue and the tide went out, revealing a tangle of collapsed houses, sheds, stones and trees that locals had watched race past their front doors after torrential rain caused Boscastle's two rivers to burst their banks and transform the geography of the fishing village.
Fire service rescue specialists used thermal imaging equipment, urban search and rescue vehicles and two sniffer dogs brought from Wales to scour ruined buildings for survivors or fatalities.
Police divers dug into thick new deposits of grey sludge to log number plates of half-buried cars and trace their owners in a bid to ensure no one was missing. Bedraggled pets were hauled from destroyed homes.
Surveying the scene, Maria Wallis, chief constable of Devon and Cornwall police, said local people were hailing it a "miracle" that no one, so far, had been found dead.
"The village is totally devastated," said the chief constable. "The feeling of sorrow is palpable. Many buildings are totally ruined.
"But at the moment there are no fatalities. If that situation stays the same, that is a significant result compared to 52 years ago when we lost a large number of people in the floods at Lynton and Lynmouth in Devon."
In what Matt Littmoden, deputy chief fire officer of Cornwall county fire brigade, described as "bedlam", the emergency services had plucked several hundred people from their homes on Monday.
Seventeen fire appliances and 95 firefighters rescued more than 50 people. Three RAF Sea King helicopters, three Royal Navy helicopters and a coastguard S61 helicopter saved another 120 people as residents smashed through roofs or clung to trees to avoid the swirling waters.
"Looking from the cliff this morning, you can't even imagine it is the same village," said local resident Mia Giudetti.
"The whole layout has changed. They did forecast thunderstorms but no one said how bad the weather was going to be."
The ancient harbour was repaired by inhabitants after storms in 1984. Now much of it, and the surrounding shops and houses, lay in ruins after a two-hour storm dumped a month's rain on Boscastle and brown floodwaters cascaded down the steep coomb the village is built on.
Shock and devastation were the prevailing sentiments yesterday as the population wandered the streets, surveying crumpled tarmac and checking to see if neighbours needed a hand.
Local people also reflected on the vagaries of floodwater - and fate. The storm destroyed some homes, but left others miraculously untouched.
By the harbour, the witchcraft museum stood firm while a Christian gift shop lay in ruins. Gallows humour was the order of the day. "The devil looks after its own," joked one villager.
Howard Baker and his neighbours laboured to redirect the muddy floodwater still sweeping through the ground floor of their terrace of stone cottages.
"I'm trying to get the stream to go round the house rather than through it," said Mr Baker, his shoes squelching. "It was a beautiful day and then we had some thunderstorms, and in no time at all the river Valency was running wild. We saw bits and bobs floating by but then there was nowhere for the water to go and the two rivers backed up.
"I was standing by the back door. The catflap was flying open and I had my leg wedged against it trying to stop the water coming in. I knew I had to get out when I saw a fridge-freezer float off."
Watching his staff search cars and motor-homes bobbing in the Atlantic - turned brown by the floodwater - Martin Taylor, a Cornish coastguard, said he had never seen such storm damage in 40 years of service.
"One can only liken it to Lynmouth 52 years ago, when dozens died. That was a tragedy. A lot of people will be stressed about their properties here, but this isn't a tragedy yet. We are hoping it won't be."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4995714-103636,00.html
