Cornwall floods made road 'more like a waterfall'

An eyewitness to flooding in Cornwall yesterday described one street as being "more like a waterfall than a road".

Flooding and torrential rain caused heavy traffic across Truro, while vehicles on the A390 were reportedly stuck in flood water.

The civil engineering contractor, Cormac, said the flooding was caused by "unexpectedly high intensity" rain and debris in the water.

Witness Jim Dyne had driven through the floods and said: "Visibility wasn't great because of the heavy rain and compounding the situation, water was also coming out of the drains."

"The drive in was chaotic, to say the least," he said.

"It would have been easier having the surfboards with us."

Witness, Esme Page, said the water was knee-deep on New Bridge Street and caused damage to several businesses.

"I feel really sad for those businesses, they were making such a phenomenal effort [to reduce the damage]," she said.

"I was really moved to see the can-do spirit, get on with it, clearing away the leaves out of the drains and trying to get the water to go down."

She added: "It's one of those situations where everything happens so fast, emergency services can't be everywhere".

Eyewitness Esme Page said businesses on New Bridge Street were damaged by the floods.

A spokesperson for Cormac said teams attended the scene to clear the debris and leaves covering drains.

"A short spell of unexpectedly high intensity rain led to surface water flooding at Trafalgar roundabout on Monday evening," the spokesperson said.

"The surface water carried debris and leaves to the lowest points of the road, covering some of the highway drains.

"Surface water drainage at this location was also impacted as the heavy rain struck near high tide."