A WORCESTERSHIRE business made a dramatic rescue in the ultimate act of customer service after flooding hit the county yesterday.
Gareth Keyte, of Oak Tree Shutters in Droitwich, visited a flooded city road to remove patio shutters to ensure they wouldn't be damaged in flooded water.
Mr Keyte said: "We fitted the unique shutters on windows last year.
"We always follow up with customers - but this was a new one on me.
"I mentioned to them when they were bought that if there is a risk of flooding I can take them down.
"They are unique wooden shutters, so we visited the stranded customers at Waterworks Road."
Mr Keyte said despite it being waist height it was quite safe to take the shutters off and take them away.
"There is no fast-running water there, I'm familiar with the road.
If there was any danger I wouldn't have done it."
The unusual rescue took place on Wednesday morning (December 3) as the city had woken up to realise the extent of the floods in the city after Storm Henk had been the latest storm to bring heavy rain.
A number of roads, bridges and car parks were closed across the county including the Sabrina footbridge and Diglis Bridge.
Among the city centre roads forced to close due to being flooded were Hylton Road, Croft Road and Tybridge Street.
Crowngate car park was initially open on Wednesday before becoming the latest car park to be closed by the city council.
A number of businesses have been forced to close including Cafe Viaduct, Hickory's, in Tybridge Street, and Monkee Business in Crowngate Shopping Centre.
A contraflow system was set up by Worcestershire Highways across Worcester Bridge, to ensure traffic moved as freely as possible to and from St John's.
Significant delays were expected on the A449 after part of the road closed due to flooding.
The road which links Worcester and Malvern was running a contraflow at Powick Roundabout and had two-way traffic on Cromwell restaurant side.
Slow-moving traffic with lengthy delays has been reported by the AA due to the road being blocked.
One driver said: "It is heavily backed up towards Callow End and Malvern.
"The water is really high."
The emergency services continued to warn people not to attempt to drive through flood water after carrying out various rescues across the county and the wider Midlands in recent days.
West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) said an ambulance crew came across a car that had rolled over in flood water and was semi-submerged in a stream at the junction of A4103/B4214 in Bishop's Frome, near Malvern.
A teenager on a bike was also rescued from flood water in Newport Street, Worcester, in the early hours of Wednesday morning after getting stuck.
Flood warnings, issued by the Environment Agency, remained across the river on Wednesday afternoon, (December 1).
The Environment Agency had said the River Severn was set to peak on Wednesday afternoon but that was changed to Thursday morning after more rain fell at lunchtime.
The Met Office forecast for the coming days is for a dry day on Thursday and most of Friday.
It is also set to be dry over the weekend - but the forecast is for it to turn colder.
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