Flashback to 2000: PM Blair pays visit as region hit by flooding
Residents living on the banks of the River Severn between Bridgnorth and Bewdley were bearing the full brunt of the worst floods in more than 50 years.
Some families were forced to flee their flooded homes while other householders tried to limit the damage as the river levels continued to rise to near record levels.
Business in Bridgnorth, such as Lawson Mardon Star and Kwik Save supermarket, have also lent stricken householders a hand by delivering pallets.
Residents were moving what property they could upstairs and they were using the pallets to stand furniture on so they can minimise flood damage.
Donald Boddy, whose Bridge Street office was on the riverbank, was making preparations along with business neighbour Pietro Drago-Ferrante, from the Il Brigantino restaurant.
Mr Boddy said:"I have lived here for 20 years and they are saying that the river will be the highest it has been for a long time."
Shropshire Fire and Rescue's incident command unit was on duty in Bridgnorth along with the service's rescue boat.
Bridgnorth Golf Club professional Paul Hinton was struggling to sink his putts - because he could not see the hole as parts of the course, on the banks of the river, were completely submerged.
Territorial Army volunteers were helping emergency services carry out rescues in Bewdley.
They ferried between 30 and 40 people to dry land in Bewdley yesterday, mainly from flooded homes in Severnside North and Severnside South.
Others were rescued from the Lickhill Caravan Park in Stourport.
Dozens of schools remained closed today, including Bewdley High School, part of which was flooded.
Police urged people to stay away from flooded areas, which are heavily congested, not to travel unless absolutely necessary, and to use public transport where possible.
Emergency services spent two hours searching the flooded Severn at Bewdley after an upturned canoe was spotted in the water.
Fire crews, police and paramedics endured appalling conditions after the canoe was reported near Northwood Lane.
Fears that someone had been swept away intensified when a thermal imaging camera on board the West Mercia Police helicopter identified a heat source in the water.
But it turned out to be a manhole cover.
Kidderminster fire station sub officer Mick Rowlands said the rescuers concluded that the canoe had been abandoned.
A huge clean-up operation was swinging into action further upstream in Shrewsbury where a heavy pumping unit was shipped in from Holland to help in the massive mop-up.
Prime Minister Tony Blair announced a visit to Bewdley and Shrewsbury to see for himself the havoc and misery caused by the worst flooding.
But his visit to Bewdley was cut short as townsfolk made a spontaneous protest against the downgrading of Kidderminster Hospital.
Many of the crowd decided to use what might be their only chance to see the Prime Minister in person to make their feelings known.
The protests were not part of the organised Save the Hospital Campaign and angered a minority of residents, who wanted the focus of the visit to remain firmly on the devastation causing by the flood.
One flood victim, Gillian Holland, of Beales Corner, chatted face-to-face with Mr Blair and told him that the floods were a temporary tragedy that would pass, but the hospital was a permanent and more important issue.
Mr Blair briefly met with Wyre Forest Council chairman John Gordon and Chief Inspector Mark Williams, of Kidderminster police, before leaving the town after just 20 minutes.
He was due to fly on to York where the River Ouse had caused similar damage.
The Territorial Army was providing a shuttle service for people trying to get to work in Worcester city centre.
Ambulance crews from the West Midlands were called in to help evacuate a hospital swamped by rising floods.
West Midlands Ambulance Service donated 10 vehicles to help move 67 patients from Worcester's Castle Street Hospital.
Ambulance service director of operations Bob Seaward said that the hospital had declared a major incident after water seeped into a boiler room and knocked out the heating system.
But there was some good news as the floods failed to wash out the Severn Valley Railway, which runs from Kidderminster to Bridgnorth.
Marketing manager John Leach said: "The engineers who built our line back in the 1860s had the wisdom to construct the railway through Bewdley about 100ft above the level of the River Severn with the aid of two big viaducts.
"The line actually overlooks the whole town and a good deal of the River Severn over the whole of the journey between Kidderminster and Bridgnorth."
