“Here we go again…” was the phrase being repeated by residents and business owners in Cockermouth as they discovered they had flooded again.
Though the vast majority of properties in the town were unaffected, it was those closest to the River Cocker who were at the most risk.
The flood defences along Rubby Banks, which raise automatically with the water level, worked as they should, as did the flood gates located around the town hall and on the lanes off Main Street.
The River Cocker was causing the biggest concern as its level kept rising – by this morning it was a torrent, battering the bridges and sweeping trees and debris down stream.
Gillian Jackson owns one of three flats which flooded on the ground floor of Hatter’s Croft, which sits on the edge of the River Cocker, as well as a holiday cottage on the other bank.
In the summer both are idyllic, with views looking out over the water, but when the rains come they are two of the first places to be at risk.
Those apartment balconies have flood defences on top of them, but Gillian says the water gets in in other ways, leaving them, literally, like a fish tank.
Once the water is in, it can’t escape so needs to be pumped out.
“This is the third time we’ve dealt with this,” she says. “The flat flooded in 2009 and again in Storm Desmond.
“When I got the call at 4am I just thought ‘here we go again’. We didn’t think it was going to happen last night – we watched the forecasts and thought we’d got away with it.
“The water fills from underneath and the balcony at the end acts like the end of a boat – the waves flood over it.
“Now we’ve got to get through the next 36 hours. We’ve got pumps, the fire is lit at the cottage, and then we will put in the dehumidifiers. We’ve done everything we can.”
George Cherian owns the Honest Lawyer restaurant which also sits at the side of the River Cocker.
It also flooded in 2009 and 2015, so he had moved his kitchen upstairs.
He’d put his flood gates up on Wednesday night but when he came to check the premises at 6am on Thursday the restaurant and bar were under a foot of water.
As the river raged outside, he was using pumps to remove as much of the flooding as he could, but says he won’t know the extent of the damage until the levels recede.
“I just thought ‘oh my god – again?’” he says. “We were due to close next week for some planned renovations but I’m going to put that on hold now because we have to dry the walls and floor out. I can’t paint anything while it’s wet – it has got to be done right. I don’t know yet when we will be able to reopen.”
Darren Ennis owns a house on the Market Street side of the River Cocker and he and his wife could only wait for news from Brussels, where he works, as it was discovered that the house’s ground floor was under water again.
“We had had lots of flood resilience measures put in and the level in the house has improved from 2015, but it still got in,” he says. “At least this time we know what we are doing to try to sort it.
“The town needs a more sustainable solution. It is now about more than flood defences – it’s about drainage too. I think there needs to be a proper plan for Cockermouth – all the agencies have to work together.”
Andrew Marshall is the chairman of Cockermouth and District Chamber of Trade.
He says: “We put messages out to all our members on Wednesday, urging them to test their flood action plans and make sure their flood gates and pumps were working properly.
“It’s terrible news for those who have flooded – I can only imagine how it must feel to have to do this all over again.
“Thankfully the flood defences have worked for most this time – now we need to see what else we can do.”
Many people in the town paid tribute to Cockermouth Emergency Response Group, which has been working hard to alert the community as the situation changes.
