Pub landlord Daryl Reilly shares his experience of the extreme tidal flood which hit Langstone, Havant, in the early hours of Tuesday, April 9.
Video of kayaker: Penny Ingram.
Video of kayaker: Penny Ingram.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 It's right at their windows there, Nursey.
00:12 My name is Darren Riley, I am the General Manager of the Royal Oak in Langston.
00:35 I'm here to talk to you about the flooding in the building. Why did you have to close following the flood?
00:42 We got flooded quite heavily. Our flood defences were off but we got about 6-8 inches of water inside the building.
00:47 I believe it came from underground which then travelled throughout the whole entire building which then damaged quite a lot of our electrical systems.
00:55 All of our fridges and freezers have been damaged. Our walk-in area has been damaged.
01:05 We weren't safe for anyone to come in and plus the fact it was steep water.
01:10 We do have a local sewage pipeline down the end so it could have had a bit of that and a bit of this in there.
01:20 We had to make sure we were fully cleaned down. The following night after the floods, I had a few team members and myself come down.
01:28 The floor, the water itself dissipated throughout the doorways itself.
01:33 When we came down there was only about half an inch to an inch of water in the building.
01:37 My main cleaner was here shoveling most of it out in the morning.
01:42 We walked around and did a good assessment of the building and realised that there was no way in fit purpose that we could actually open.
01:52 We weren't safe. The building, we still had half of our power disrupted by a lot of our fridges and freezers triggered a lot of that.
02:02 And blew a lot of fuses so we couldn't actually have anything operational.
02:07 The only thing we had on the day was water, lights and our till system which unfortunately just meant that we could see and not do anything.
02:15 Because without our fridges and freezers and our coolers and our food storage areas being operational we can't effectively operate.
02:24 Which meant we had to stay closed for that whole entire day and the whole day just entailed us cleaning up the aftermath of the storm.
02:34 It was significant damage across the whole building. A lot of it is luckily repairable or replaceable.
02:41 Around the garden area was quite deep. Quite an unusual thing as well.
02:46 There was a significant amount of worms that were dead, sorry, that were pulled out of the grounds.
02:53 Quite an alarming amount and I've never seen something like that in my life.
02:57 The decking area amazingly survived but the plant potted area, the sleeper pots completely destroyed, thrown off the sides.
03:07 It was just, yeah, it was throughout the whole entire building it was just a disaster.
03:13 But we did get there. We all worked together as a team.
03:17 A lot of us, a lot of the team members that are in today were in on Wednesday and Tuesday just to help clear up, tidy up, reorganise the business.
03:26 We had to discount thousands of pounds worth of foods. We're still tallying that up today.
03:32 Today is the final day where we get to finalise our report and send it off and say this is how much we've lost.
03:38 We're at about the £3,000 mark and we're still increasing because we're still finding little things that are wrong here and there and everywhere.
03:47 But it's been nice to have the community around on the first day as well.
03:53 The first day I think every single member of the public that are local to us on the high street came down to see how we were doing, offer their support and help.
04:00 Gracefully we had to decline. We couldn't actually let anybody in the building.
04:06 Just for health and safety reasons and the last thing we would want is someone to come in that was helping us to get hurt or to hurt ourselves in some way.
04:14 But no, the community spirit was there. A lot of people came in to say they were going to help, which is really nice.
04:21 But yeah, we had to graciously decline and then just build up and fix up everything we could and then get back to work, which is today.
04:30 Have you had anyone from local authorities or emergency services come out at all?
04:35 Not to me specifically, no. But we do have our own head office that will come out and assess the building, the structure.
04:44 We've had a lot of support from our company, Green King. Our surveyors have been down, our health and safety teams have been down.
04:52 They're well organised. Their head office, our repairs department, they've been on it.
04:57 They've been making sure that we're getting all the support that we need down here.
05:00 So we haven't had any local authority support, but our company has looked after us and made sure we're OK.
05:08 And lastly, you mentioned that you're 80 to 90 percent operational now.
05:14 When do you anticipate kind of being fully back?
05:18 I would like to say next week. I know there can be delays.
05:24 I know there may be equipment shortages. I know that sometimes it's not a clean cut case of, yeah, I'll be done by next week.
05:32 We're anticipating next week. But realistically, I imagine we'll be 100 percent within two weeks.
05:37 And that's just because we're still finding things today that aren't as they were before the floods.
05:42 And a lot of the water is still coming out from underground.
05:46 So we're past the storm. We are. But we're not past the assessment of damage yet.
05:52 For instance, I walked through a door the other day. It was fine. I walked through a door this morning.
05:56 It's completely still shut because it's swollen now.
05:59 There just seems to be little bits here, there and everywhere that just need to be rectified.
06:04 So hopefully our fridges and freezers are walking areas are done by next week.
06:08 We know it's not going to be this week. Once that's done, it usually takes 24 hours to rest over.
06:14 So if our walk in areas are done and the majority of our fridges and freezers have arrived by next week and our Coca-Cola dispenser is back by next week, we'll be 100 percent by next Friday.
06:25 But in the way of the world, I don't believe that's going to happen.
06:29 I'm optimistic that that will be the case. But realistically, I believe any upwards of 14 days.
06:36 But I don't see it exceeding that. I imagine by then we'll be a good 99 to 100 percent done.
06:45 And yeah, so we should be good a week to two weeks.
06:49 [BLANK_AUDIO]