Little boy woke to water coming through front door and window

TORRENTIAL rain flooded multiple streets across Briton Ferry yesterday as much of South Wales was hit by heavy and persistent rainfall with an amber warning for rain in place.

- TAITE JOHNSON

Catherine Jones with her children Emily and George.

(JONATHAN MYERS)

Cars were submerged, drains have been overflowing and people have been left stranded in water inside their homes.

Robert and Catherine Jones have been left with a flooded home, having to throw floodwater out in buckets.

The ground floor of the home they rent on Hunter Street in Briton Ferry has been ruined by flooding which has "destroyed" their Christmas with their two young children.

Robert, a postal worker working nearby, left his home at 6.30am yesterday but received a call from his wife an hour later telling him their house was flooding.

The couple's youngest son walked downstairs in the morning to find water coming through the front door and the window.

Sending their two children, five-year-old George and eight-year-old Emily, to their grandparents' house, Catherine and Robert began shovelling the water from their home.

The water in the downstairs of the property is around two-feet high and Robert says the furniture was floating around the living room at one point.

The living room, kitchen, bathroom and back garden are under water and they are unable to flush the toilets.

Speaking to one of his neighbours who has lived on the street for 20 years, Robert found out that the street had not flooded in that time. Along the street in Briton Ferry, six houses are flooded as well as a small shop.

The family's Christmas tree is amongst other items including photo albums that have been ruined. Robert said: "We had a train track around the bottom of the Christmas tree but that is just all over the living room now. All the ornaments and Christmas toys, we buy one or two new ones every year, they are all ruined."