As Cimi Kazazi stood in the middle of his flood-damaged bar and restaurant in the Leicestershire village of Great Glen, he struggled to find the words to describe the devastation.
“I can’t even talk about it. I can’t even bear to look at it,” said Kazazi, 50. “I don’t want to say a number [for the cost of the damage], I can’t, I’m scared to say it. I just hope the insurance will cover it.”
Thick mud has coated every surface of the Italian Greyhound, with furniture and glass bottles scattered across the room as if blown there by an explosion.
All the electrical appliances, including fridges, freezers and cellar pumping equipment, had been destroyed.
“There were bottles of whisky found floating in the car park. Thousands of pounds has gone,” said Kazazi, originally from Albania, and who has lived in the UK for over 20 years, mainly working in the hospitality business.
It had been a tumultuous 48 hours for Kazazi, who made national headlines after dramatic footage emerged showing him rescuing a woman from a submerged car.
He had been sat in his office upstairs in his flooded pub when he heard his neighbours shouting for him: “Cimi, Cimi, we need your help.”
He said he quickly waded across the chest-high water to rescue the woman and bring her to safety – despite the risks wading in such deep water and not being able to see steps and drops.
“I just walked out, I knew that it was dangerous but I was only concerned about the person,” he said. “It was so cold, really bad. But because I wasn’t thinking for me, I was thinking for them, I didn’t feel the cold.
“If she had been there for 15 more minutes, I think she could have died. It was scary.”
He said he had been inundated with messages from people across the world praising him for his bravery, and he was “proud” that he had done “something with my heart, without even thinking”.
Great Glen was just one of many areas in the East Midlands hit by flooding this week, with fire services in both Leicestershire and Lincolnshire declaring major incidents due to the scale of it.
East Midlands ambulance service also declared a critical incident for the first time in its history, partly due to the flooding triggered by heavy rainfall and melting snow.
Most of the UK was subject to yellow warnings for snow and ice later on Tuesday and into Wednesday, with disruption to travel and the potential for power cuts expected.
It comes after several days of snowy and icy weather, which left large parts of the country blanketed in snow and exacerbated the flood risk as it began to thaw, with hundreds of properties affected.
On Tuesday, a severe flood warning, indicating danger to life, was issued for Barrow-upon-Soar in Leicestershire.
The main areas affected were caravan parks along the banks of the river, with many residents evacuated as the water levels rose.
Graham Johnson, 65, his partner and their dog had to be rescued from Proctors Pleasure Park by emergency services after the water rose quickly and they became trapped on their houseboat moored in the park.
“It was about 9pm, and it got to the stage where the river had risen so high, two of the ropes had gone from the front of the boat, and my partner was scared to death. We just had to get off,” he said. “They loaded us on to a dinghy and took us to dry land.
“I’ve been here 14 years, and it’s getting worse. It’s going to happen every year,” he said, adding that he had decided to move away. “I can’t do this any more.”
Helen Gill, who also lives in the park, said she had been flooded three times last year. “You get fed up with it. I’m sure something can be done, without a doubt. And it needs to happen now,” she said.
Many blamed housebuilding on floodplain zones for the increase in flooding in recent years, as well as weather exacerbated by climate change.
In Great Glen, residents have raised alarm over proposals for a 4,000-home development just outside the village while flooding events are on the rise.
The village was completely cut off on Monday when the two main routes in and out became submerged in water, and some elderly people had to be rescued from flooded homes.
The River Sence reached it highest recorded level in history during the flood.
“It’s surprising how people can get stranded immediately,” said Peter Scott, 72, a resident and parish councillor who spent several hours directing cars away from flood waters after a number became stuck.
“The emergency services were stretched to the very limit so there was just nobody there, so you step up to help because you don’t want to see a car ruined, or somebody drowning.”
He said frustrations were growing in the village, and he expected a packed out parish council meeting later that week.
“People will be very rightly angry. There was a lot of snow runoff, and the fields have been full of water for months; it was the perfect storm,” he said.
