Flooding at Dambrigg, New Buckenham

A number of motorists had to be rescued from floodwater after persistent rain engulfed the county yesterday (Saturday).

Driving on the A11 between Thetford and Wymondham was reported to be very difficult as the rain turned to snow in the late afternoon.

In New Buckenham, motorists were rescued by firefighters when their car was winched out of floodwater on Dambrigg at 7.30pm on Saturday, while fire crews from Long Stratton and Carrow rescued two people stuck in their car in the ford at Tasburgh just after midnight on Sunday.

They were then called out again at 4.40am to rescue a person stuck in floodwaters on Low Road, and at 6.30am one engine from Long Stratton attended a flooded cellar on Norwich Road in Forncett. Crews pumped out two feet of water.

In Broome, near Bungay, appliances from Loddon, Carrow, and a rescue boat were mobilised at 6.34 on Saturday to a disabled woman trapped in her car in floodwater. Crews removed the car from the floodwater and carried out scene safety.

Len and Chris Steele, who live near Old Buckenham on Haugh Road, said flooding was a regular occurrence in the area.

“I’ve seen cars just floating away down there – it goes across the road like a rapid,” Mr Steele added. “We’ve only been here three years but speaking to the neighbours they said it does happen time and time again. “The problem is there aren’t many ways around it. I was giving out maps to people a couple of weeks after Christmas showing them how them how to avoid it. “From here you’ve got a problem if you try to get DIss because it floods and it floods in the other direction so you have to take the lanes, and they sometimes flood too.”

Mrs Steele added: “Apparently the people who lived here before said the water used to come up to the driveway.”

Glyn Garner, also of Haugh Road, added: “This is the third flood this year and it’s unprecedented – I’ve never known it like this.

“They really need to do something about the drainage.”

June Garner added: “You try to stop people going into the floodwater but it’s difficult.”

One woman, of Grove Lane, Tasburgh, who did not want to be named, said: “Because we’re up the hill a bit we don’t get problems but if you’re trying to go out to Attleborough or Norwich you have to go on the small roads and some of them flood sometimes.

“The thing that bothers me is that the water floods off the field and down the road – we used to have gravel on the road and now it’s all at the bottom.

“This winter is the worst I’ve known it but I think it’s common sense not to go through floodwater. There have been one or two people who have got stuck but not anyone I know because most people I know wouldn’t bother to go down there.”