PEOPLE have been evacuated from their homes in Hereford as 25 houses flooded in one Hereford street as the river Wye burst its banks.

The river level rose dramatically on Thursday as a result of heavy rain during Storm Christoph, with only three houses in Greyfriars Avenue escaping flooding.

Flood warden Colin Taylor said the floodwaters are receding today (Friday), but residents are now facing another mammoth clean-up mission having only just fixed damaged from the Storm Dennis flood in February 2020.

"It's the third-highest flood on record, that's how bad it is," Mr Taylor, 64, said.

"February [2020] was the first, then [October] 1998 and now this one, so it's a bad flood. All the houses except for three have got water in them of some sort of amount.

"Some have just got the carpet soaked, others have got several inches of water. Out of 28 properties there's three houses with no flood damage, so it's quite bad."

The residents in Greyfriars Avenue, near to Greyfriars Bridge in the city, recently came together to form a flood group should the Wye burst its banks again.

Hereford Times: The view of Greyfriars Avenue from Fryers Gate Apartments. Picture: Sean O'Callaghan The view of Greyfriars Avenue from Fryers Gate Apartments. Picture: Sean O'Callaghan

Mr Taylor has two deputy flood wardens to help coordinate the effort, with the team evacuating some people from their houses on Thursday.

The river Wye peaked at around 5.6 metres on Thursday evening, half-a-metre below the level seen last February.

The lower-level meant three houses escaped internal damage this time, compared to just one in February 2020, including Mr Taylor's.

Like others, he had set a target of Christmas 2020 to fix the damage, but now some people in the avenue have had all their hard work undone in the wake of Storm Christoph which battered the UK on Wednesday.

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"We've been pretty well prepared, we've got the rescue boats organised from the February before so we've basically be shuttling people in and out of their houses," Mr Taylor, a former Hereford United physiotherapist, said.

"I'm 6'4" and I've be wading way above my knees, almost up to my groin, in water in places.

"It's made getting in and out quite bad, but not necessarily in their houses, so we're just ferrying people in and out to get to work basically.

"We've had to evacuate a couple of people who it all got to much for, we've got quite an aged population so we had to evacuate a couple of people out.

"With Covid kicking in we struggled to find somewhere to put them, but we managed to do that."

Hereford Times: The houses at the bottom of Greyfriars Aveue, as seen from Greyfriars Bridge. Picture: Ella Mentry The houses at the bottom of Greyfriars Aveue, as seen from Greyfriars Bridge. Picture: Ella Mentry

He added: "We've got helpers now, I've got two deputies, we've got the boat and the kit, so we've looked after ourselves quite well this time.

"But unfortunately, most of the houses got flooded, it's devastating.

"Many people like us wanted everything done by Christmas, but just a couple of weeks after they've got to start again.

"It's not as bad as last time, let's remember that. Last time it was a 6.1-metre flood in February of last year, and this was a 5.6 I think it peaked at. That's a half-a-metre difference, which is a lot of water."