Storms cause wave of water from field to crash into home

Mr Coward said that his newly installed kitchen was ruined and that many of his possessions, including sentimental items given to him by his grandparents, had been destroyed.

Simon Coward outside his flooded house

He claims that following the harvest of potatoes from a field above his property in Rue des Vaux de l’Eglise, St Martin, soil was left exposed to torrential rain and poured down the field and into his home when the wall collapsed under pressure.

However, the company using the field at the time say that they are not at fault and that the unprecedented amount of rain which fell was ‘a freak of nature’.

A number of other properties in the Island were also damaged by soil and water running off potato fields on the night of the storm two weeks ago, including several in Grands Vaux.

Mr Coward said: ‘My wife and I were watching television during the storm. We heard a crash and just thought it was thunder, but it was in fact the rear wall collapsing. Suddenly, a wall of water hit the house. It was like a tsunami.

Simon Coward outside his flooded house

‘In no time at all, it was right up to my shoulders. It picked up our washing machine and pushed it 15 feet from the kitchen into the hallway.

Mr Coward believes that the cultivation of the field by the Jersey Royal Company left the soil exposed to the flood and caused it to cascade down the field with the water, building up pressure against the wall.

He is still working to clear his house of mud and will now have to strip the walls and fixtures in the ground floor of the house beforebeginning to repair the property.

Ian Le Brun, land manager for the Jersey Royal Company, said that the firm strived to please all people in properties surrounding their fields.

He said: ‘We saw an unprecedented amount of rain fall in a short space of time in an isolated area. This was a one-off, an absolute freak of nature.

‘We have farmed the land above his property for about five years and we have never had a problem. We are a caring company,and on the night of the storm we had teams of people out clearing floods. That is the nature of what we do.’

Graeme Stokes, director of health and safety for the company, claimed that a loss adjuster who had inspected the property said that the company were not to blame.

‘She said it was an act of god,’ said Mr Stokes. ‘The house is located directly at the bottom of a valley. It is actually in Jersey law that it is up to the land owner to handle the water which falls on their property. Apart from a one-centimetre-diameter pipe, there is nothing there.’

– Advertisement –
– Advertisement –