Update: Severe weather warning issued (From Witney Gazette)

Update: Severe weather warning issued

3:15pm Thursday 11th January 2007

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HIGH winds blew trees into roads across Oxfordshire causing difficult conditions for drivers today.

Shortly after 6am, a large tree fell across the A361 Bloxham Road, near Chipping Norton, blocking part of the carriageway.

Two cars collided as the drivers tried to avoid the tree. They were not seriously injured and police were called to help clear the road.

A tree also fell on a car in Samphire Road, Blackbird Leys, this morning.

Toby Shergold, a spokesman for Oxford Police, said: "We have received dozens of reports across the Thames Valley of fallen trees causing road hazards.

"Highways Agency staff are helping to clear the roads."

Yesterday dozens of homes and businesses were flooded after a deluge hit the west and north of the county.

Roads were also left impassable - with one elderly couple having to be rescued from their car by firefighters in Witney - as 35mm (half of the average rainfall for January) hit Witney and its surrounding villages.

Householders in low-lying areas of Bampton, Leafield, Alvescot, Witney and Broughton Poggs, near Burford, were woken at about 3am when water started flowing into their homes.

The rest of the county was hit by 15mm of rainfall.

Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service received more than 30 calls for assistance.

Seven houses in Mill Green, Bampton, were affected, three in Home Farm Barns, Alvescot, were flooded, a farm in Broughton Poggs was hit and, in Leafield, two houses in Buttermilk Lane were flooded.

Four homes were flooded in Hailey Road, Witney.

Fire crews pumped out water and helped residents salvage their belongings.

Four inches of muddy water ran into the living toom of 51-year-old Bob Swanton, of Hailey Road.

Mr Swanton, a firefighter, said: "I only had half my flood barrier up and the water flowed right over the top of that.

"If I'd have had the full barrier up it would have been fine, but I didn't have any idea it would be this bad. We don't have a carpet just in case of flooding, but a laptop was on the floor so that got wet and so did the sofas.

"It's funny, I'm usually the one pumping water out of other peoples' houses."

The home of Jake and Nicola Spencer, who live with their three children Thomas, two, Libby, three, and James, six, on the corner of West End and Hailey Road, was also flooded.

Mrs Spencer said: "We just decorated in May and put in a new carpet.

"I managed to rescue the children's toys and we got the sofa raised up, but the carpet is ruined."

Mr Spencer, a fork-lift truck driver, added: "This house has not been flooded in 45 years. It must be climate change."

Sandbags were being given out for free by West Oxfordshire District Council to people whose homes had flooded.

In Bicester, drivers were forced to abandon their cars by the side of the road and floods covered Mallard's Way and Linear Park after the Langford Brook burst its banks.

Mallard's Way resident John Broad said the area had flooded three times in the last five years.

He said: "There's a car that's been stranded about halfway through. We were told by the Environment Agency that this level of flooding would only occur once in 100 years."

Bicester firefighter Russell Hurle said his crew was called to the A4421 near Newton Purcell at 5.50am when a car lost control. The driver was not believed to have been seriously hurt.

The Environment Agency has issued Flood Watches - warning of flooding to low-lying land and roads - on long stretches of the River Thames and the catchment areas of the River Cherwell; the River Ray; the River Thame and the River Windrush.

Click here for latest Oxfordshire flood alerts.

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