The Curious Incident of the Duck in the Flood
At about 11am on Friday the 19th July 2007, the skies over Croydon became black as night. The cars driving below my office window turned on their headlights, giving the atmosphere of a November evening rather than a mid-summer’s day. About fifteen minutes later we heard the first clap of thunder and, soon after, a wall of water began to descend from the heavens. The storm was so intense that the office congregated around the windows, watching as the roundabout flooded and cars spluttered to a halt. The sound of wailing emergency vehicle sirens was everywhere. It was apocalyptic.
The downpour lasted about half an hour before it ceased, as abruptly as it begun. Miraculously, the sun came out, the drains, previously unable to cope with the sudden influx of rain, began to clear the surface water. Soon, there was no evidence that it had so much as drizzled, let alone that we had experienced the heaviest rainstorm I have ever seen. I walked home for lunch in bright sunshine, stopping only to empty our open dustbin of approximately six inches of rainwater.
Whilst home I checked my email, ate some sandwiches and watched the news. There was footage of parts of Croydon, Kingston and Richmond under water. It didn’t occur to me to wander downstairs to the bedroom, in the basement.
That afternoon’s work passed quickly enough, and I was soon back home. After Neighbours I thought I’d go downstairs to have a quick go on Warcraft 3 before Ellie got home.
It took a few seconds for my brain to process the scene that was in front of me. There was water everywhere.
My first thought was that the rain must have come in through a window or the ceiling, so I ran round trying to ascertain the point of ingress. The bed, my desk, everything above floor level was bone dry. Everything beneath, literally, was swimming. The hems of my work trousers were sucking up flood water like a thirsty camel.
It seems fairly obvious what had happened: the water table, already swollen and high due to the recent heavy rain, had been unable to cope with the sudden, ferocious deluge. The water level rose and quickly overwhelmed the foundations and protective membrane beneath the flat. The carpet was soaked through, as were whatever books, documents, clothes, electronics, furniture and other assorted possessions that had been left on the floor.
The next few hours were a frantic blur of shifting furniture and possessions off the soaked carpet and onto the bed, upstairs or wherever could be considered out of harm’s way. Phonecalls were made to the landlord who came round to inspect the damage and quickly agreed we needed professional assistance. We phoned many of the cleaning companies found in the Yellow Pages, who were all inundated and unavailable. Eventually we found someone who would come out, at treble the normal rates, of course. When he eventually turned up he pronounced it ‘extremely bad’ and spent well over an hour hoovering up gallons and gallons of water.
It was only after he had left that I noticed Ellie’s soft toy, imaginatively named ‘Mr. Duck’, hanging in a disconsolate, soggy mess over her sit-up machine:
In truth, the whole incident was less ‘curious’ than ‘incredibly annoying’.