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Residents' race against floods in Malton's Castlegate
HOUSEHOLDERS in Malton were on standby as the River Derwent continued its relentless rise after days of heavy rain.
Although the town's 8m flood defences were holding against the onslaught of recent days, the saturated ground meant the water table was high and this, in turn, brought underground springs bubbling to the surface.
One of them, at Castlegate, near the bridge over the swollen River Derwent, eventuallly forced Daniel Fish and his four months pregnant girlfriend Kirsty Young, both 18, to quit their home.
Daniel said: "I noticed the water in the bathroom at 6am yesterday (tues) when I got up to go to the toilet but didn't think a lot about it."
By late afternoon Daniel was worried as the water level rose and the fire service arrived to begin pumping out the flats.
Daniel said "The water was coming up through the floors. We had two to three inches everywhere and we had to leave last night." (tues) They, their two dogs, cat and a rabbit, sought temporary refuge at his father's house in the town.
The flooding was caused by a spring on the "wrong" side of the multi-million pound flood defences installed after the damaging deluges of 1999 and 2000. The system of flood embankments and walls keeps the River Derwent in place, but stop water on the other side getting into the river system.
At The Gannock, in Old Malton, water was being pumped from a flooded beck back into the Derwent, over the flood defences, last night (tues) to prevent flooding there.
Meanwhile in Pickering, which suffered from disastrous floods in June last year, water levels in the beck, although high, were not rising.
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Weather for Malton
Thursday 24 May 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 11 C to 18 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 11 C to 18 C
Wind Speed: 24 mph
Wind direction: East
