A major road submerged by floodwater could reopen as early as next week after a month of rain fell in less than two days.
The boot of a car was pictured poking out of the 8ft deep water along the A421 in Bedfordshire, where a roadside pumping station has reappeared after two weeks.
‘It simply got totally overwhelmed by the sheer volume of water that fell here in such a short space of time’, said Martin Fellows, the National Highways regional director.
The road has been closed in both directions, between the A6 at Bedford to the M1 junction 13 near Brogborough/Marston Moretaine, since the ‘one in 100 year event’ on September 22.
More than 72 million litres of water have already been removed through 2.5 miles of pipe and 25 tankers to balancing ponds, according to Fellows.
That’s the equivalent of nearly 29 Olympic swimming pools, or more than three times the length of the pitch at Wembley.
It could mean part of the road will reopen next week as early as Wednesday when the rest of the water has been removed, BBC News reported.
But major repairs could be required, with at least one slip road needing to be resurfaced, further delaying its reopening, Bedford Independent reported.
Mr Fellows said: ‘We will be working around the clock to carry out repairs and get the road reopened as soon as it is safe to do so.
‘It may be possible to open some elements of the road towards the end of next week – such as one lane in each direction – but we will only do that when we are certain it’s safe.’
There is anger that this happened in the first place, after the pumping station tasked with removing floodwater was itself flooded.
Sue Clark, a Conservative on Central Bedfordshire Council, said: ‘Nobody can think of it as anything other than a national disgrace.
‘The only way they can extract the water is by tanker, they’re using a fleet of tankers and they are transporting the water into other balancing ponds or other streams that are not at capacity.’
Mohammad Yasin, the Labour MP for Bedford and Kempston, said he has been assured by Mr Fellows that the failed pumping station will be replaced.
Blake Stephenson, the Conservative MP for Mid Bedfordshire, said: ‘It beggars belief that this infrastructure was built in the way it was.’
Mr Fellows said: ‘We will work with all the partners to ensure we can mitigate the impact and make sure it doesn’t have such an impact again.’
He added: ‘Let us do our job, let us work and get this water cleared and get the road open as quickly and safely as possible.’
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