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After devastating floods made Greystones girl Allison Vaughan and her young family homeless last December, it didn’t take long for the town to pull together and help.
Allison and partner Lee Dunne had just moved into the groundfloor apartment in Sowerby Bridge, Yorkshire with their two young children when they were suddenly made homeless. Just before Christmas.
Sending out an S.O.S., Greystones joined in the fundraising to help the family find shelter whilst they began to pick up the pieces. The Guide was spurred on by Allison’s friend, Clare Kilmartin, to help send out that S.O.S., and today, we hear from Allison herself about the ordeal, the rebuild, and having a happy family home again…
I met Lee 11 years ago in Oz, and made the move over to the UK about 9 years ago. We moved to Sowerby Bridge in the Calder Valley, and bought the flat in 2009. We loved every minute of our time there and made some amazing memories. I was pregnant with Finn when we moved in; it was the only home he ever knew and even though we were beside the river, never in our wildest dreams did we imagine that the river would ever break the wall. We felt so safe.
We decided to sell the flat back in May 2015, and after two buyers pulling out due to completely unforseen circumstances, we exchanged contracts on the flat and signed on the dotted line for our dream home in November. We were so excited to spend Christmas in our new house, but, since the people we were buying off had just had a baby, we agreed to hold off till the New year until we moved.
Christmas day was a pretty hectic one – we cooked for 13 people and had a lovely day surrounded by Lee’s family. The plan was then to fly to Ireland on Stephen’s Day to spend the rest of the holidays with my family. It rained pretty heavily all Christmas day and more rain was forecast for Boxing Day. I got up with Sebastian at 6 that morning, and that was when I noticed the rain collecting outside. My heart sank. The rain was relentless and flood warnings were put in place for further down the valley in Hebden Bridge. I remember feeling physically sick at the thought of what might be, but kept convincing myself that the rain would stop, the river levels would lower, and it would all be fine.
The boys’ Grandma came and took them at 7am, just as a precaution. I packed some clothes and some of their new toys, and sent them on their way. My self-delusion as to how the day would end was very much still in place and I told 5-year-old Finn that it would all be fine, and we would come get him soon.
At about 10am, the realisation of the severity of the situation hit us. I frantically threw some clothes into suitcases that luckily were out in preparation for our trip to Ireland and we called the flat’s management company to see if they had a van we could use to move our belongings. They did, and came straight away. We managed to get the suitcases, our two couches and a lamp in before the van was full and Lee went with them to drop the stuff off just up the road.
I then turned my attention to the boys’ things. The thought of all of their Christmas presents getting ruined broke my heart’ so I emptied dirty washing and ironing out of baskets and tried to take what I could. Unfortunately, at this stage, the water was coming in fast, and within 5 minutes it went from seeping in through the window frames to being ankle deep.
The firemen were amazing and tried to help me, but the depth of the water made it far too dangerous to be in the flat and there was just nowhere left to put things as at this point – the water level was waist deep outside. Before I got a chance to take anything out, I was evacuated due to the rising water levels, and the danger of the walls coming down.
The last thing I can remember before I left was looking back to see Finn and Sebs Christmas presents floating in the water. It was a horrible sight. Lee was gone approximately 20 minutes, and within that time the water had now risen to over 2 feet.
As we left Sowerby Bridge, fire engines were whizzing past and sirens were going off everywhere. It was pretty overwhelming at how fast the flood water had taken over. If Sowerby Bridge was this bad, we knew that further down the valley would be even worse.
We were booked to fly back to Greystones that day and after some convincing to leave by Lee’s family, we decided to go. Mainly for the kids. Finn was devastated about the prospect of not seeing his cousins, but also because we had no idea when the water would retreat and what state the flat would be in.
We stayed in Ireland till the 5th of January. It was a comfort being surrounded by family, and it distracted the children, but at this point, the sale of our flat looked to have fallen through, and we had received a call from our neighbour to tell us that the water was above the hall door of the flat.
Once the flood water had retreated, the amount of people who gave up their Christmas holiday to help with the clean up was unbelievable. The local community and people from up to 30 miles away came to the area to help with the clean-up. Their support was unreal. Family and friends, and even strangers, gave up their Christmas to help clear out our ruined belongings. I felt extremely guilty knowing that we weren’t there and that other people were dealing with the aftermath, but looking back at the state I was in, I don’t think I would have coped very well. Going to Ireland also sheltered Finn from how bad things were back home. He had just lost all of his things, so to cancel our trip to Ireland would have killed him. Finn lives for his trips back home!
Lee’s mum, brother and stepdad were amazing. They worked tirelessly to get things sorted for us. From clearing the flat and cleaning what they could for us, to making the temporary flat that we were housed in feel homely for when we got back. I honestly don’t think I could put into words how humbled we felt by their, and everyone else’s, actions.
After a pretty emotional phone call to Clare, she set up the Go Fund Me page. Again, I don’t think I could put into words how thankful we are to Clare, and to all of those who donated. It has been without doubt one of the most humbling experiences we have ever been through. The support we received from the local community, our friends far and wide who donated to the Go Fund Me page, and our families who supported us in Ireland and the UK, make us feel unbelievably blessed.
We got back from Ireland on January 5th, the day we were meant to be moving into our new house, and after a few days of feeling sorry for ourselves, we decided that life goes on, and that we weren’t going to let what happened define us. Our attitude was that there were people out there a lot worse off then us, and that we were pretty blessed to have had all the help we had received.
After a couple of weeks back, we got an email from our solicitor to say that our buyers had reconsidered and that if we wanted, the sale was back on.
We were completely thrown by the news and felt like pinching ourselves to prove we weren’t dreaming! It took another couple of weeks, and until it actually happened, we didn’t really believe that it was actually going to. We were just waiting for something to go wrong! The move itself was ridiculously stressful, thanks to the other party’s solicitor, but after a turbulent couple of days we finally got the keys to our new house at 4pm on a Friday afternoon, and by Sunday were moved in. We slept on mattresses in the front room for the first few days, but due to the unbelievable fund that was set up by Clare, we have been able to replace most of our belongings, and over the last few months we have made our new house a home.
The boys are in their element here and it feels like this house was built especially for us! 2016 started on a low but it’s safe to say that it’s so far been a brilliant year. I recently passed my driving test, first time! I was promoted in work a few months back, and myself and Lee recently got engaged on our 10-year anniversary. Wedding date yet to be confirmed!
When GG has the wedding details, I reckon Greystones should surprise Lee and Allison, and just turn up, en masse, to the afters. To wet the new house’s head, but, in a good way…Â