Anne Powell“It was a very quiet day, the sun was shining,” says Miles Jenner, head brewer at Harvey’s Brewery, reflecting on the 25th anniversary of the Lewes floods.
“The thing that alerted us to the fact something was going to happen were the birds going absolutely frantic in the trees – and we thought oh dear.”
The East Sussex town saw around a month’s worth of rainfall in the days leading up to the flood on 12 October, 2000.
More than 600 homes and 300 businesses were inundated with water from the River Ouse and more than 180 people were forced to sleep in emergency accommodation.
George Carden/BBCBarrels of beer went floating up the river into the English Channel, cars were completely submerged and businesses destroyed.
Nobody died in the floods, but the damages to the town cost £118 million.
Other towns such as Uckfield were also badly impacted.
“We went from a dry brewery to six foot of river water in the space of 15 minutes. We came back to a scene of devastation,” says Mr Jenner.
“We abandoned the brewery, some of the staff by lifeboat, others waded waist deep into the high street. I climbed over the roof back into my house which is next door.”
Richard Burrows, 77, lives in South Street and was one of the people rescued.
He said: “I started putting plastic bags over the air bricks of my house, then I saw the water come round the corner and down the street.
“It just kept coming. My mum lived next door and we went upstairs.
George Carden/BBC“It eventually went to the top of the radiators. The lifeboats were going up and down the street offering to take people out.
“We assumed it would just stop, the water would go down and life would pick up again.
“We got in the lifeboat, I remember my mum saying ‘well it’s not as bad as the Blitz’.”
Michele Doyle, co-owner of Emporium Antiques Centre, said: “We snuck in, we weren’t meant to. We found out afterwards because there would have been manhole covers that would have been up.
“We opened the doors every day and had two industrial dehumidifiers collecting four buckets of water a day. It was like a warzone with all the skips full of stuff from the shops.”
Harvey’s Brewery will be selling Ouse Booze for the anniversary.
The beer was made when they combined two half completed brews as the flooding was happening.
Now they are using the same ingredients to make the same beer 25 years later.
George Carden/BBCLewes Town Council is marking the anniversary with two events at the end of the month.
Professionals in the emergency, environment and support services will come together for a day of presentations and panel discussions to explore the causes of the 2000 floods, the risk of flooding now, and what steps are needed to reduce, manage and adapt to the impact of flooding on people and property in the future.
On 1 November, a public meeting chaired by the former MP Norman Baker will invite residents to put their questions to local experts and flood specialists.
