IN July 2007, Oxfordshire suffered its worst floods in living memory.

Exactly 10 years on, Oxford is about to embark on the biggest flood prevention scheme in the city's history, in no small part influenced by that year's events.

In the first of two features marking the anniversary, Environment Reporter Pete Hughes looks at what led to the disaster and its arrival in West Oxfordshire.

IT is the greatest irony of serious flooding that one of people's biggest fears is not being able to get enough water.

If water treatment works are flooded then clean water supplies for thousands of people can instantly be compromised.

So it was in West Oxfordshire in July 2007.

One homeowner later told the government's Pitt Review, set up to learn lessons from the floods: "The main panic over essential services focused on water.

"There were near punch-ups in the local Sainsbury’s over water, it was pandemonium.

"People were just terrified at being left without water."

By the end of July, the government had distributed more than 3.5 million litres of bottled water to people in Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire and other counties.

Oxfordshire residents also later recalled that queues to get into petrol stations were so long they could not fill up their cars.

That isn't even to mention the hundreds homes evacuated across the county by police and firefighters.

If Oxfordshire has ever felt like a disaster zone, it was the second two weeks of July 2007.

The terrifying saga had begun more than a month before in mid-June, when severe thunderstorms left parts of the county underwater.

As the unusual weather worsened over the next weeks, thousands of people had to be rescued from flooded homes from Kent to Yorkshire.

By the beginning of July, the Association of British Insurers was already estimating the damage at £1.5bn.

Most famously of all, the village of Tewkesbury and its historic Abbey were turned into an island when the Severn and Avon burst their banks.

Until that point, Oxfordshire had avoided the worst and looked on in horror.

Then, on July 20, much of southern England was deluged by more than three inches of rain in just 12 hours.

Oxfordshire had the third highest rainfall in the country at 150mm – 3.39 times the average for the month.

Perhaps even more significantly for Oxfordshire, though, the highest rainfall in the country was just over the border in Gloucestershire at 197mm (4.11 times the average).

Because streams in Gloucestershire feed two of Oxfordshire's biggest rivers – the Thames and the Windrush – there was only one way the water could go.

So, while Gloucestershire was immediately battered by flash floods, underground millions of litres of rainwater were pouring through the soil into the waterways that lead into the centre of Witney and Oxford.

West Oxfordshire was hit first on Saturday, July 21.

That morning, the Environment Agency issued a flood warning for the River Windrush and its tributaries from Worsham to Newbridge including Witney and Standlake.

By Saturday afternoon the fire service was pumping water from more than 300 homes in Bampton, where 1,000 sandbags had been issued in 24 hours.

Homes at Curbridge were flooded and minor roads across the River Evnelode became impassable.

The Old Prebendal Care Home at Shipton-under-Wychwood had to move 50 residents to the first floor and arrangements were made to evacuate them later.

Charlbury was dramatically cut off as the road bridge out of town became a rushing torrent.

Even though residents knew the water was coming there was nothing they could do except rush frantically to the supermarkets and petrol stations to fill up on supplies.

Inevitably, the waters eventually reached Witney and the Windrush burst its banks.

West Oxfordshire district councillor David Harvey later said that Witney was a town 'cut in half' as the river spilled out onto roads, into homes and businesses.

Bridge Street was closed and residents were rescued from homes there and in Mill Street.

Peter and Morag Crowther, who ran a music shop on Bridge Street, heroically managed to rescue two grand pianos worth a whopping £30,000 by heaving them up on pulleys and putting blocks beneath the legs.

Mr Crowther told this paper later: "It was a close thing: the water was about four feet deep and, thankfully, we later managed to get the pianos into storage in Ramsden.

"I needed help and people were fantastic."

By the evening, flooding on the A40 caused by the River Evenlode led to gridlock.

As the water continued to rise, Mr Harvey recalled helping the Environment Agency move hundreds of sandbags and drove stranded residents to drier land.

An un-named district council officer later told the Pitt Review that 'the distribution of sandbags is costly, fraught with difficulties and largely ineffective' – one of the many lessons which could only be learnt by harsh experience.

Elsewhere in Oxfordshire, that year's Truck Festival in Steventon had to be cancelled because the fields were sodden.

By Tuesday, July 24, residents in West Oxfordshire were beginning to pick up the pieces.

But on that same day West Oxford was pounded by seven inches of rain in 24 hours: the effects were to be devastating.

See tomorrow's Oxford Mail for part two of our feature: the floods hit Oxford.