She has described the community’s support as “absolutely brilliant” as people in the small village have banded together to organise a huge clear and clean up effort. 

She said: “We’ve got a big field that the farmer has ploughed and beyond that we’ve got the common. Basically all the water came down off the hills. We’ve got a six foot stone wall and it’s breached the wall and it’s just completely flooded through our house.

[For more images of the local flooding see: PHOTOS and VIDEOS: Flash flooding turns roads to rivers across East Devon, leaving ‘devastated’ residents counting the cost of the clear-up – Owl]

Mary Stenson www.devonlive.com

A woman living in a Devon village that was among the worst hit by flooding yesterday (May 9), has said she is “devastated” and “emotional” after water rapidly gushed into her home, causing significant damage.

Following a yellow weather warning from the Met Office, rain battered Devon yesterday afternoon. Newton Poppleford in particular suffered flooding which some motorists described as “horrendous”, with some parts of the village becoming totally impassable.

One household in the village is facing a huge clean up as their home became severely damaged by torrents of water flowing in. Hilary Pinfold and her husband have lived in the house for two years but this is the first time they have experienced flooding in their home. They said they were “shocked” by the power of the flood which knocked over walls, a fridge-freezer and even moved their car.

(Image: Hilary Pinfold)

When asked what was going through her head as water poured into her home, Hilary said: “I don’t think I can repeat it to be honest. We were just shocked because we just felt helpless because we didn’t know what to do.

“We couldn’t get our heads round the volume of water and how powerful it was. It had the power to move a car, it’s moved my husband’s car in the garage, it’s turned over a fridge-freezer, it’s knocked down two walls in the garage that have just collapsed.

“I just heard my neighbour shouting at one point ‘your outhouse is going’ and the outhouse just collapsed. We’re in a bit of a mess.

“We’ve got to have the floors replaced because we don’t know if water’s gone under the house. We’ve lost a hell of a lot of stuff as well.”

The water was able to enter the property as it ran down from a field behind the house that had recently been ploughed. In footage captured by Hilary, the water can be seen coming into the garden, leaving behind thick silt the next day.

She said: “We’ve got a big field that the farmer has ploughed and beyond that we’ve got the common. Basically all the water came down off the hills. We’ve got a six foot stone wall and it’s breached the wall and it’s just completely flooded through our house.

“The garden is a nightmare because we’ve got about eight to ten inches of silt in the garden. I don’t know what we’re going to do with it. If there’s any gardeners out there that know what to do then that would be very helpful.”

Hilary went on to explain that she has felt “very tearful” and “emotional” in the 24 hours following the flood. She says this made it difficult for her to sleep and the family dog has even felt the impact as Hilary explains it is “absolutely petrified”.

She said: “(I feel) shocked and very tearful at times and emotional and tired, really tired because I was up at about 5am and I don’t think I fell asleep until about 1am.

“The dog is absolutely petrified and doesn’t know what’s going on, the poor thing.”

Despite the devastation to their home, Hilary has described the community’s support as “absolutely brilliant” as people in the small village have banded together to organise a huge clear and clean up effort. She said: “The community spirit has been absolutely brilliant. We’ve had a team of volunteers because so many houses affected. We’ve had so many people just cleaning and digging and clearing out the garage. People from the church have just been and taken away the towels to wash and things.”