Huge flood hits Wolverhampton homes
Monday 25th October 2010, 2:25PM BST.
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Thousands of gallons of water gushed into houses today after an underground main burst along a busy Black Country route – leaving thousands of homes without supplies.
Stow Heath Lane, East Park, Wolverhampton, was today under 2ft of water after a mains pipe burst.
Dirty water gushed into homes along the road – while more than 10,000 houses in Wednesfield and Willenhall were left without running water or low pressure.
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Residents in dressing gowns clutching mugs of tea gathered in the street to watch the drama unfold.
Firefighters, police and Severn Trent workers were today at the scene trying to repair the damage, which was reported at 7.30am.
Devastated residents reported “waves” of water gushing towards their homes as police cars and fire engines drove along the road to try and solve the problem. Cars have been banned from driving along the street.
Several inches of water swamped Tony McKenzie’s home. The 50-year-old father of three said: “I was shocked. At first I thought where is all this rain coming from because I couldn’t see the burst pipe. Every time a car went past the house the water was coming across the room like a wave. All of my electrical items are ruined.”
“We piled clothing behind the front door to try and stop the water getting through.”
Laura Griffiths, 34, said her son Brent, 16, woke up early to go to work this morning and discovered water was gushing from a pipe in the middle of the road.
She said: “I had to call the police as drivers were carrying on trying to get down here and it was sending a big wave of water towards the house each time. At 8am you could still see bits of the road but now it is completely under water.”
Firefighters from Bilston station were today pumping water from the road. Severn Trent spokeswoman Grace Marren said: “We would like to apologise to our customers in the Willenhall and Wednesfield areas who are currently affected by loss of water supply.
“This is due to a burst we have on a large water main on Stow Heath Lane in Wolverhampton.”
By Alex Campbell
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I live in walsall and we have no water as well because of this.
when i called they said it could take days to fix…..
and what are we to do about water?
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Get some bottled water. See how easy it is to take water for granted? You assume you turn on a tap and it’ll come out. Millions of people have to walk many miles to drink out of a dirty, infected puddle
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Yes, but do those millions of peole pay extortionate water rates to a company who can screw up as much as it like with no comeback, but go mad when their payment is so much as 1 day late?
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No they have other things to worry about, like how they are going to feed their children, how they are going to keep a roof over their heads and where the next meal is coming from. So I suppose they are lucky they don’t have to worry about a utility company.
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yeah well we are not in africa we are in the west midlands where we pay for our water
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Good- you’re lucky then. So stop being so miserable. The water will be back on by the end of the day.
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It’s not just the fact you can buy bottled water. We have had no water at all since 7.00am. I had to go to an office job without a shower, or shave. My wife couldn’t shower or wash her hair either before her work.. I have two children who need to have a ‘number two’in a toilet that I cannot flush.It is now 4pm and still no water. How about a stand pipe so I can fill it to flush the toilet. I have bought water from ASDA, but not enough to fill cistern with. I assume, Louise, that you are not affected by this due to your santimonious attitude.
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Blimey Luoise it sound rough in Walsall
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Another major leak proberly due to old water main pipes not being replaced as the water companys are too busy paying directors fantastic salarys and shareholders fantastic profits. God bless maggie for selling off the water companys. we are now reaping the benefit of selling to some people that already belonged to us anyway.
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I live in willenhall and have no water at all.
Im 39 weeks pregnant and have been told they have no idea how long it could take to fix it.
No doubt the rates will be oput up again to pay for this
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it could be worse
you could be living in haiti eh?
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Well said. Maybe these people will now realise how lucky they are that they have mains water!
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Look we are sick of hearing about Haiti. All i want is some water. What on earth has it got to do with Haiti. We are in the West Midlands paying our own Bills.
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Peoples whos ancestors chose to live in places like haiti obviously saw something they liked there, they dont know any different so why should we feeling sorry for them everyone has their own problems to deal with let the haitians get on with it like every one else does
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Go down to the shops and buy some bottled water: Tesco sell it for less than 20p a bottle. The water main is burst. They’re repairing it. When it is fixed you’ll have water again.
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Buy bottled water. I’ve not long been to Sainsburys and they practically sold out of water! I’ve had to take a day off work to organise things in case there’s no water tomorrow and Severn Trent have been most unhelpful. Won’t recompense for loss of time taken for today and not even talking about compensation for not receiving a day’s worth of water. As for Haiti, do they pay extortionate water rates? We pay for a service for which were not receiving but hey, if me and the other half use the toilet long enough we should have the conditions that the Haitians have got and then people will be a bit happier then!
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What a selfish comment. Me me me.. I hope they never turn the water on
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I dare say it could be worse but water is an essential and living without it is something many of us find hard to do.
Hopefully it will be back on soon but I’m not holding my breath.
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…and there was me moaning about possibly having no water tonight… no more – I feel sorry for those poor people who have been flooded.
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Pity it’s not in Brierley Hill we could have made a swimming pool.
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It is Mick McCarthy’s fault
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LOL
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This made me chuckle!!!
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@jeffb
Love it how a typical labour view is to blame maggie for everything…
Problems happen when pipes are underground for a few years, are they meant to dig the road up every year to check the condition? i think not.
A problem has occurred, get over it… like we all have to!
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I totally agree, we could go on & on about the state that Labour have left the country in now, but we aren’t.
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I am unhappy with not having running water; however I do feel more gratitude for the fact that on most days of most years we have constant running water, for which I am certainly more grateful for.
I am more annoyed with the inadequate coverage of the situation on Severn Trent’s website. They should have a large page with map to enable us to keep updated with the situation.
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“Dirty water gushed into homes” – from broken water mains that supply us with water? Perhaps they came from flooding of the drains not the mains themselves…
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I live in Wednesfield, im happy at this news…least now i can have a free swim whooop whoooop!!! splish splosh! dunk!
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Thats just trampy! sicko…think of the stress its causing people – u are selfish dude!!!
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I’ll join you for the swim – a good splosh about in the lovely water – will be soooo much fun! Cleaner that what i’m used too! WHOOP WHOOP
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Don’t try Severn Trent. They are as helpful as a Chocolate teapot. Couldn’t give me any timescale for when we’d get water and i may have to take a shower at work tomorrow! Marvellous! Oh and number 9 comment, we can play the Tories because they privatised everything!
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You cant give a timescale for jobs such as this one. The repair teams that do the work have problems sometimes with things such as not being able to get the water turned off that is still coming out the pipe to do the repair safely so who are you to critisize?
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I’m in Mallorca so I don’t care about no water in wolves!
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Most of Bentley is without water too, severn trent can’t leave it too long they’ve got to get it fixed soon, it’s so unhygenic as well regarding tiolet and shower facilities.
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i live in bentley too, and my toilet stinks! thanks to my son! i got told 2 hours ago that its ready to be put back on! thay are full of crap
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so is your toilet…lol
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hurray its back on, not too bad a timescale for such a big burst
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We still have no water (i live walsall town)
when i called them up they said it may be the morning!
wednesfield has got there water back
:-(
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I don’t see what the problem is? Didn’t think people in Willenhall washed anyway.
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We have a trickle!!
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don’t know what your all moaning about, just cause you have’nt got a bit of water for a while. there doing the best to get it repaired. try thinking about the peole on stowheath lane affected by it really……….
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I think we can all manage for a day. These things happen, unfortunate a it is for the people whose homes were damaged, who really do have something to complain about. Can’t people just get on with things without complaining for once?
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All these people saying stop moaning are, I’m guessing, fortunate to have their water unaffected. All this talk of Africa etc, my God, what are you on about? If it was your water gone off you’d be up in arms too! It’s like someone steeling your money and someone saying to you ‘what are you moaning about? Theres poor Africans in the world’ Doesn’t really make sense!
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i live on stowheath lane and my son was first to see the burst pipe and we rang the water board at 7.30 this morning, but my worry wasnt having no water i have spent all day tryin to clean up the water and mess the flood has left us with i would much rather ov been one of you just left without water, we still are yet to have water im just thankful i still have a home
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Hi, All you people saying we should just go and buy water are stupid! i was washed under the floods and my life flashed before my eyes. i was dragged to safety by a man with his underpants above his trousers and he pulled me back to the surface.. about 40 cars 30 lorrys 20 bikes and 3 helicopters so far have been washed away in the floods so all you people more or less saying it was nothing to worry about need to be quiet and take a moment to reflect that i nearly lost my life and because i havent i have recently gone to my 5 local shops including sainsburys and used all my life savings to buy every bottle of water availiable and hide them in my house so everyone does suffer!!! mu hahaha mu hahaha
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he speaks the truth. i sawed it too.
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if it freezes over at least you can start a charity skate-a-thon for haiti !
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i live right next to stow heath lane luckily the water did not flood into my steet but we were left with very low pressured water, i really feel for the people its affected and i think severn trent should do something to prevent this in future i mean at the end of the day we are always forking out for it i just hope the water rates do not increase after this tragic escapade
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Why don’t u all get off ur high horse the main has split I have been on the job repairing the burst it’s not as easy as you people think, we have to dig it out without hitting the gas, electric, bt, fibreoptics to banks and find the burst cut out the old 18″ pipe that is damaged and get the new pipe in asap we r under alot of pressure we do our best, it is repaired now so when u wake up enjoy ur shower and brushing ur teeth spare a thought for the children in Africa good morning to u all roll on next shift if u can do better apply for a job.
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Well said Steve, these miserable people obviously think the water main repaired itself- thank you for getting it fixed!
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It seems a lot of the comments complaining about water being off ‘for a whole day’ (my God, how do you survive?) are just indicators of what is fairly wrong with society i.e. lack of perspective, complete selfishness, no appreciation of how good people have it in the UK and generally whinging about slight inconveniences (exceptions obviously for people with new babies and the sick), but for most people they have NO idea of the challenges the MAJORITY world face day in day out – too concerned getting their ‘entitlements’ and the latest ipod4. And enough of this ‘oh, i pay taxes here in the west midlands’ rubbish. count yourselves lucky and get over it. You smelly lot.
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Ok Steve youve done a good job.I am a self employed sparkey, so i understand your problems, not to mention rain, darkness and freezing temps. I wonder what general state the pipe is in, is it likey to facture again in the near future. I do not live by the damage site.Regards dave
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I managed to avoid all the hassle and confusion of the water being switched off all day by actually having a job therefore being at work, hence the fact my water being off at home had no bearing on my days events, some of you lot ought to try this new craze of getting a job!!
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Some of these people (as said in above article) are Mothers looking after children, or parents looking after their children during half term, which coincidentally started this week.
Not only are you completely off the mark WorkingLad, you were never on the board.
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Do these people on here having nothing else to do but complain? Thank god I left the Mids and moved to a county where there are less moans to put up with. Very petty mindeded is the Midlands attitude. If you are not moaning, you are queueing for the next opening of an IKEA store or supermarket, or queueing to get into Merry Hell! Get a life.
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