Brit teacher's dog's 'impossible escape' as Spanish floods tore through home

The English teacher said she returned to find her two daring golden retriever puppies had clambered over an "impossible" baby gate, to get to safety on the top floor of her home in Godella, Valencia province

A British expat living in Valencia recounted her dog's daring escape to dodge the deadly floods that decimated the Spanish region last week.

The "impossible" escape came as the storms destroyed everything on the ground floor of Annabelle Reece's home in Godella, in the province of Valencia just outside its main city of the same name.

Annabelle, 50, who lived in Ashford, Kent, before relocating to Spain 23 years ago recalled how she scrambled to her car as "hailstones the size of fists" pounded down during the storms last week.

The aftermath of the flood left a "metre-high" mountain of debris and destroyed part of her home, leaving her without running water. She has been forced to rely on the kindness of neighbours and friends to wash herself, her clothes and her dishes.

Ms Reece praised the local volunteers who have been helping to clear the thick layers of mud and debris that still cover houses, streets and roads. Last Tuesday, Ms Reece, a teacher at Colegio Internacional Levante in Chiva, was desperate to get home to her two 10-month-old golden retriever puppies when the worst of the floods hit.

"I started driving home after work, I was driving over the mountain, which was difficult as it was collapsing," she told the PA news agency. "What should have been a road was an ocean. I stayed in my car for four hours while hailstones the size of fists fell on the car. The rain stopped at about one o’clock in the morning and I went to go home. I decided to try some other ways to get to another place where there should be access – there’s a bridge that had collapsed. I had to abandon my car and walk the rest of the way and wade through a river to get home."

When she arrived at her property, she couldn't open the front door due to furniture and mud obstruction, yet felt a wave of relief upon seeing her dogs had safely made it to the first floor. "The dogs were at the window at the top," she recounted.

"We’ve got those baby gates to stop them going upstairs and honestly it’s impossible for them to get up there, but they got up there."

She also mentioned that the dogs have been restrained for six days because the mud poses a danger. Ms Reece lamented that "everything" on the ground floor was ruined by the floodwaters.

"Everything on the ground floor is damaged really, you clean something and then you just realise that it’s full of mud and not salvageable," she explained. The family's swimming pool was also affected, now filled with mud, and they've been advised against touching the contaminated sludge due to health risks.

Supermarkets are bare, and while government assistance has been minimal, the community's response has been "incredible". "We’ve had friends, family, people that we know, people that we don’t know coming to help," she said gratefully.

Despite the lack of running water in their own home, neighbours have offered their showers. "We’ve got family who’ve managed to get to us every day, to bring us food."

Additionally, she highlighted the collective effort in clearing a metre-high pile of debris behind the house, thanks to volunteers. Spain's worst flooding disaster this century has claimed the lives of over 200 people, with an unknown number still missing. The Valencia regional government has come under fire for not issuing flood warnings to mobile phones until 8pm on Tuesday, by which time some areas were already experiencing flooding.