Residents count the cost of wild weather as raw sewage floods into homes

Four properties in Curzon Street were hit by the flooding, which has destroyed carpets and left a stinking mess.

Firefighters from Colne attended the incident at 9.52pm on Saturday and isolated the electrics in the houses before pumping out the sewage.

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They were at the scene for around an hour.

Yesterday the sewage had been cleared up in the street, but the smell from the drain remained in the air as residents attempted to air their houses.

A house in Skipton Old Road faced a different kind of clean-up following the dramatic weekend storms after a bolt of lightning struck the property.

Michael Hartley described hearing a ‘big crash and bang’ when the lightning hit the roof of his house at around 6.30pm on Sunday.

He said: “We were sitting upstairs when it suddenly went very dark and the storm started, then all of a sudden there was a big crash and bang and all the power went off and the phones were down.

“We knew straight away it had hit the house, we called the fire service and they were here for about an hour making sure the electrics were OK.

“We’ve got the power back on, that’s not been damaged, but the phones and the internet are down.

“The lightning came down the TV aerial and blew the aerial socket in the front room out, so we’ve got no aerial and it’s also broken both TVs as a result.

“It’s going to be an insurance claim now so we have to deal with that and try and get it sorted.”

Jacquie Watson, who lives opposite Mr Hartley, was watching the storm when she saw the lightning hit.

She said: “It was like there had been an explosion, it just hit the roof and then it looked like it had blown up.

“It was quite a shock, you don’t expect to see that so close even when there is a storm.

“Our broadband router was damaged but that was it, so we got away lightly.”

Watch manager Richard Taylor, from Colne fire station, said: “They were very lucky. Usually it causes a lot more damage.”