"My mum, Maureen Gilbert, had lived in her house in Tapton Terrace, Chesterfield, for 83 years, her whole life. I was born there 49 years ago. These houses have been up standing for 120 years, and in all the time my mum lived there, we had never had any floods until 2007, when the water probably got up to about 4ft."
"I had visited her in the morning, after the flood alert was made, and left about 12 noon. I wasn't unduly worried; I glanced at the river levels as I left. By 1.20pm she rang me when I was home to tell me there was water coming in. I said to her: Are you upstairs? She said she was just getting her stuff together to go upstairs."
Storm Babet in 2023 caused seven deaths across the UK, led to more than 10,000 evacuations and caused over £450m in property damage. Extreme rainfall is more common and more intense because of human-caused climate breakdown, and experts linked some of the storm’s damage to the climate crisis. Maureen Gilbert lived in Tapton Terrace, Chesterfield, for 83 years. Floodwaters rose rapidly during the storm; she called at 1.20pm to report water entering the house and the telephone was later found floating beside her body. The house experienced nearly six feet of water, far exceeding previous flooding in 2007.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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