A man made a 'dam of towels' to stem the flow as water burst through the toilet of a listed home and flooded downstairs rooms during Storm Ciara.
Peter Britton, who lives at Elmer Lodge on Goodwins Road in King's Lynn, said the heavy rain on Sunday, February 9, was the worst that he had ever seen.
The 72-year-old said he believed the heavy rain at around 2pm resulted in water bursting through the toilet and spreading across the Victorian tiled hallway and into other rooms.
Mr Britton said: "It was a phenomenon. I've never seen anything like it in my life and we've lived through the big winds in the '80s that brought down power cables and trees.
"But that sudden 20 minutes was something else. It was like a hurricane, and the rain that came down was worse than those gales in that sense."
He added: "I think we had a blow back of the storm flooding. All that heavy rain had just blown the pipe and the water just erupted through the toilet."
Mr Britton, who was ironing at the time, was alerted to the flooding by his son.
He said: "There was just a boom, and my son came shouting down the corridor saying we had been flooded, and that was it - we went into action.
"It was like a torrent and it travelled along the corridor into the other bathroom.
"I had to put a dam of towels down to stop it getting into other rooms.
"Water was just coming up the sides of the house: we were under attack."
Mr Britton added: "We're just an example of what the rain did. It was horrendous.
"It was windy, but this is Norfolk. We're used to it. But nothing could have prepared you for Sunday. It was a freak."
Mr Britton bought the part Georgian and part Victorian house one-and-a-half years ago and had recently carried out renovation to the property.
He said: "Thankfully it didn't come into the living room: the flooring in there is Victorian and it would have ruined that.
"We were worried, it's such a special house and we didn't want the flooring ruined.
"At one stage I thought I was going to have to get a water pump in, it was so bad.
"It was like a river, it wasn't just a trickle."
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