A village underwater: 20 years since Boscastle flooding
One of the 'worst floods in UK history' which put the Cornish village on the map
It is 20 years since the north Cornish village of Boscastle went underwater following one of the worst floods in UK history.
Listen to our special documentary on Boscastle Floods:
The incident, which cost £15 million of damage, has since been remembered with many locals saying it actually put it "on the map": bringing more tourists in during the years that followed.
In total, 75 cars, five caravans, six buildings, and several boats were washed into the sea, and around 100 homes and businesses were destroyed on 16 August 2004.
Sue Webster is the owner of Harbour Light, a family owned business which was washed away by the flooding and had to be rebuilt.
Sue said: "My mother was here living in this property. It just started raining and it continued raining, more so than we'd ever had before. The river was rising and had gone over the bank and the cars were beginning to come down. I took my mum to safety which was quite a feat.
"We abandoned the car and we couldn't actually walk down through the road. We had to go through the fields, over barbed wire and there was lightning. I got her to my house and left her there in safety.
"There were cordons, helicopters and all the emergency services."
Since the day, there's a sense of wanting to 'move on' with many residents and businesses no longer wanting to reflect on the Boscastle flooding.
"A lot of people don't want to talk about it"
Sue added: "There's a lot of people who don't want to talk about it, partly because we get asked about it so often. If people are interested we still have to talk about it for the visitors who want to come down and it's promoting our village at the end of the day."
Rick and Dot visit Boscastle once a year on holiday, including before the flooding.
Rick said: "I suppose it's what put them on the map, who'd heard of Boscastle before that. Most people had never heard of Boscastle until that happened and then since that happened, you don't forget it.
"It was put straight quite quickly."
The impact of the flood:
According to the Environment Agency, on the day of the flood, about 75mm of rain fell in two hours - the same amount that normally falls in the whole of August.
The sudden downpour led to huge amounts of water flowing into two rivers, the Valency and Jordan, which flows into the Valency just above Boscastle.
Both overflowed and this caused a sudden rush of water to speed down the Valency which runs through the middle of the coastal village.
The emergency response:
The response involved emergency evacuations of people in Boscastle. Crews from the RNLI, HM Coastguard, the Royal Navy, Devon and Cornwall Police and Cornwall Fire and Rescue service attended to help take people to safety.
Three helicopters from the Royal Navy, three from the RAF, a coastguard aircraft from Portland and two civilian air ambulances from Liskeard were all involved in rescues.
One of those first on scene was Lieutenant Commander Martin ‘Florry’ Ford, who has just retired after 44 years with the Royal Navy.
He said: “Boscastle should have been relatively easy, but circumstances made it extremely difficult. I am still amazed there were no fatalities. When you consider there were 50 or 60 cars washed out to sea - you only needed one family to stay in their car because of the rain, and that would have been it."
Lieutenant Commander Ford said they arrived off the coastal village of Boscastle in the midst of a ferocious downpour.
"We were sat outside over the sea, as visibility was terrible, and we were hit by a microburst. The rain was that heavy it was like a waterfall running off the rotor blades all around us.
"This was bigger than just Boscastle"
"There was a 100-square miles affected. That evening we were called to attend another job. There’d been a big car crash, because of all the rain, and we ended up taking a small child up to hospital in Bristol."
Could Boscastle flood again?
As a result of climate change, the Met Office suggests flash floods due to severe downpours of rain could happen more frequently.
Regan Mudhar, PHD researcher of UK weather and climate extremes at University of Exeter, said: "Flash flooding is defined as being more than 30mm in an hour, in Boscastle in 2004 that definitely meets the definition.
"When they run these simulations into the future and account for the greenhouse gases we continue to put out into the atmosphere, they think that we'll see probably twice as many flash flooding events in the UK in say 2070 compared to 1990. That plays into this extremes becoming more extreme and becoming more frequent which we'll see with climate change."
John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, and Prince Charles visited members of the emergency services and the local GP surgery, which acted as the emergency centre, in the days following the disaster.
Prince Charles, who is the Duke of Cornwall, made a large donation to a fund to help rebuild parts of Boscastle.
Since the incident, to prevent similar occurrences to 2004, a £10m flood prevention scheme was put in place by the Environment Agency and the National Trust, which owns large parts of the village, including:
Widening of the River Valency by 3m (10ft) and lowering it by 2m (7ft), raising the car park and removing low bridges and replacing them with wider bridges.
An Environment Agency spokesperson said: "Since the Boscastle and North Devon flash floods in 2004, extensive action has been taken to ensure these and other communities receive the best protection possible from flooding.
"Following the events of 2004, the Environment Agency commissioned an improvements project to reduce flood risk and boost flood resilience in the region. Flood schemes were developed for both the River Valency and River Jordan and existing schemes in the nearby communities of Canworthy Water and Helebridge were upgraded.
"At a national level, a register of Rapid Response Catchments in England was created to understand where else could respond to extreme rainfall. We engage closely with these communities to raise awareness of their flood risk and develop community flood plans to prepare for extreme weather.
"We can never eliminate flooding entirely and, due to our changing climate, we can expect more intense rainfall all year round. We encourage everyone to sign up for flood warnings, prepare a flood plan and explore Property Flood Resilience measures to reduce the impacts of flooding on homes and businesses."