‘No lessons have been learnt’: As floods ease, anger rises in south Wales valleys | Wales

ONEafter the anguish came the wrath. As flooding receded across the south Wales valleys and devastated residents and business owners surveyed the damage caused by Storm Bert, questions were raised about whether warnings were sufficient.

Many of the overwhelmed towns and villages saw similar devastation in 2020 when Storm Dennis swept through – yet those interviewed by The Guardian said little, if anything, had been done to future-proof floods and storms in the intervening years.

Pontypridd in Rhondda Cynon Taf was one of the worst affected towns, with the River Taff bursting its banks and flooding dozens of properties.

Jenna Cowley, 38, is co-owner of Storyville Books on Mill Streetwhere floodwaters rose through the drains and overwhelmed the neighborhood of independent shops and businesses.

Cowley piled surviving books into plastic boxes and salvaged what she could; the floors and lower shelves of the bookcases were dirty with brown water stains and a dehumidifier hummed in the doorway. A larger space at the back, which they recently acquired and launched their first event in recently, was also soaked.

She and her partner and co-owner Jeff Baxter were only alerted to the rising water by a neighboring business, Cafe Zucco, whose owner posted photos on Instagram.

“We had a yellow warning, but we’ve had a lot of them and not much has happened,” she says. “So we didn’t think much of it.”

After seeing Zucco’s post, Baxter came down to the store to find that the water had tripped the electric controls of the shutters. With the help of neighboring business owners, they opened them and discovered the damage inside.

Cowley says around £15,000 worth of damage was done “before Christmas”.

She says there are questions that need to be asked and answered as to why the flooding happened.

“It was not the water that comes from the river and comes up the street. It has come up from the drainage system, and then the back of the building has also been flooded,” she says.

“I’m not an expert in that area, but of course some support and some answers and some studies are needed so that it doesn’t happen again” We didn’t get a flood warning, the alarm was sounded by Zucco.

Across the street, the owner of Zucco, Enrico Orsi, is open for business but similarly wants answers. “I don’t want to point the finger,” he says. “But it has obviously happened here before.

“In 2020, Storm Dennis wiped out a whole generation of businesses here. Obviously the powers that be – Natural Resource Wales, the council, Welsh Water – they know it’s a vulnerable area.”

Orsi says he understands a pumping system was installed under the street, “But it obviously failed … so there are a lot of questions. They know this place is vulnerable.”

He was given no warning, he says. “I didn’t expect that at all. If I had known, I would have put my flood barriers in and other businesses could have taken the precautions they needed.”

Orsi managed to protect his cafe by frantically putting its sluice barriers in place after coincidentally arriving early enough to see water “shooting up like a fountain” from the drains.

On Sionsgade, which is all that separates the River Taff from a row of terraced houses that run parallel to the stream, residents are assessing damage to their properties.

Phillip Caddy, 67, is now the landlord of a property that used to be his home and was at the scene to check on his tenant and set up dehumidifiers to dry out the water that was coming into the back of the property. He also does not say that he received any timely warning about the floods.

“The gate and the wall in front of the house actually held, but the water came in behind when the rain overflowed from the gutters,” he says.

Paula Williams, whose Sion Street house flooded, accused Natural Resources Wales (NRW) of not listening to them the last time there was flooding.

She says, “This time only about four inches of water came in, but it’s the exact same spot we told NRW about last time and they didn’t do anything about it.”

They received a flood warning around 7:40 a.m. Sunday, when the river had already burst its banks, she says.

About 25 miles away in Cwmtillery, Blaenau Gwent, residents were evacuated after a landslide from a coal tip left a trail of destruction. The incident left buildings deep in mud and mud as water rushed down Woodland Terrace.

The landslide was an “unprecedented washout of a former coal tip in the area”, the Welsh Government said, adding that the tip was Category D – the most potential impact on public safety.

Becky Ashford-Singer, 32, whose home was missed by meters of mudslides, says she has never seen anything like it and fears future repeats.

“Our concern now is – of course they’re clearing the water at the bottom of the hill now, but the top of the hill is the problem – so there’s been a landslide, which definitely means another one is coming,” she says.

Another 10 miles south, Cross Keys rugby club in Caerphilly county town, near Newport, is reeling after the devastation caused by the River Ebbw, which burst its banks and flooded the rugby pitch before overwhelming the clubhouse itself.

Colin Vernell, the chairman of the social club, helped with the clean-up on Monday as carpets were stripped, electrical wiring was rerouted and furniture was washed down.

He says the club was hit in 2020 during Storm Dennis and “no lessons have been learned since”.

“We have spoken to the council to see what they can do about it since it happened last time. But no joy, nothing.”

Sian Williams, head of operations in north-west NRW, said the agency would investigate whether any part of its data collection for Storm Bert had not been carried out correctly.