The Shropshire – Worcestershire area of the United Kingdom has been experienced snow and flooding, freezing temperatures, road blockages, among other problems.
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More than a dozen roads have been closed and properties near the River Severn flooded.
Two people were rescued from a building on Coton Hill, Shrewsbury, along with a motorist in the village of Pentre.
Coalbrookdale and Ironbridge Primary School shut while water reached buildings in Bridgnorth. River levels there were expected to peak later.
Shropshire Council said the Severn had peaked at Welsh Bridge in Shrewsbury at 4.9m (16ft), lower than last February when it almost broke the record of 5.25m (17ft), which was set in 2000.
Attention had shifted to areas further downstream, including Ironbridge, Bridgnorth and Bewdley in Worcestershire, the Environment Agency said.
Defensive barriers have been put in place and the river was expected to peak over the weekend.
Granville Elson, who runs a butcher’s shop in the Longden Coleham area of Shrewsbury, said its defences had held, but he had been forced to get in via a window.
And further down the street volunteers used a small boat to ferry staff in and out of a care home
Care worker Karen Early said: “All the roads are blocked… so we have to catch a boat sometimes, which is a lot of fun.”
The West Mid Showground in Shrewsbury also flooded and chief executive Ian Bebbington said he and his team were “absolutely shattered”. Stock for charity shops had been lost, he said.
The organisation said river “models are inherently complicated linking together millions of pieces of data” about factors such as how wet the ground is, and travel time down the river.
Also in the town, Mark Davies, the owner of Darwin’s Townhouse, said he felt “really, really fed up” after floodwater had got into the bed and breakfast.
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He also complained river level estimates from the Environment Agency had gone up and down, making it hard to plan his response.
A spokesperson said as the agency included “real, rather than forecast, information into the models they have responded to the changing information”.
The organisation stated it always gives a predicted range of levels and updates them regularly, adding it was “always expecting high levels”, which was why it began communicating about the risk “several days before the peaks happened”.
More than a dozen residents were evacuated in the early hours from flats north of the town centre.
Resident Paul Morahan said: “For it to have got as deep, as quickly as it has (in) such a short space of time… you’re left numb really.”
Jane Cuthbert-Brown had 50cm (20in) of water in her home in Pentre, near Shrewsbury.
“We put door defences in, but it didn’t stop the water which came through the floor and through the walls, because [they] are a bit like a sieve, being a 300-year-old sandstone property,” she said. Read more from BBC
