AMPHIBIANS RACE TO RESCUE 1000 PEOPLE ISOLATED IN TRENT VALLEY

Chronicle (Levin), 21 March 1947, Page 5

AMPHIBIANS RACE TO RESCUE 1000 PEOPLE ISOLATED IN TRENT VALLEY

Press Assn.-

' y Telegraph

■Coyyright

6 Received Friday, 10.45 a.rn. LONDON, March 20. The Thames, under a sunny sky today, is now almost everywhere well above the record levels reached in the blac.k winter of 1894, all commemorative marks of which are sub- > merged. The greatest flood before 1894 was in 1763. " •' , In Trent Valley army amphibians, after racing 200 miles - from Aldershot through the night, began rescue operations at Bentley Village, where local floods hav.e risen to danger point. Meanwhile, the police are trying to get food in rowboats to the occupants of upper rooms, where the water in some cases is already lapping upstairs windowsills. The amphibians were sent after Mr. A. G. Walkden, local member in the House of Commons/ received a telegram from the Bentley Council saying: "One thousand people been isolated and foodless for twenty-four hours. Small boats are useless owing to the powerful current. The water is three feet deep and still rising. The position is desperate." Late at night Mr. Walkden saw. Cabinet Ministers and as a result the War Office sent amphibians. The Governor of Gloucester Prison, clad in thigh boots, carried the bridegroom and officiating canon through deep water to a wedding in a water-encircled church. Afterwards the party rowed to the wedding breakfast. The Severn Catchment Board stated: "It is the worst flood in memory and the water is still rising." The Severn rose during the night and at Shewsbury is 1 1 feet 9 inches above its summer level. It fiooded more houses, some wool warehouses, a foundry, two cinemas, a printing works and several garages and churches. It is now possible to sail up the aisle of the Abbcy Church in a punt. In the Fens troops at Earith on the CambridgeshireHuntingdonshire border after working searchlights thioughout the night to block the breach in the Great Ouse through which torrents of water are surging face at least a foitnight s work. They have used already 100,000 sandbags and now the work may be delayed unless moie aie lushed to the district.