‘We were dreaming of Christmas on the canal boat – now we’ve got to spend it in a hotel’
A retired US couple looking forward to their first Christmas on their canal boat will now have to stay in a hotel after a giant hole opened in Shropshire.
The giant hole appeared on the Llangollen Canal in Shropshire on Monday, leaving several narrowboats trapped in the hole or dangling on the edge of a drop.
Geoff and Pamela Poole were just three boats away from the breach and said their boat began to slide. Ms Poole told the BBC their neighbors woke them up by knocking on the door at 4.20am on Monday morning.
He said: “The whole boat was slipping and everything had fallen off. I literally watched How The Grinch Stole Christmas last night and saw a Christmas tree full of broken ornaments on the ground.”
The couple had planned to spend their first Christmas on their boat and had only been on it for two and a half months.
Mrs Poole said: “We have a lovely tree and our whole bed is covered in little lights. I made a homemade wreath.”
Mr Poole told BBC: “We actually retired, left our two children in America, flew here, got the boat back in May and spent months preparing it. That’s the end of our plans for the winter.”
Although they will be able to visit family on Christmas Day, the couple will have to spend Christmas in a hotel as they do not have a spare bed.
Another man described narrowly avoiding a sliding canal boat in the middle of the night. Bob Wood, 75, was asleep on the boat when he woke up in the middle of the night thinking he might need to use the toilet.
He said: “I stood up and thought: ‘We’re getting a little bent.’ I thought I was in the middle of a big storm. There was a lot of water noise.”
“I opened the back door to see why we were tilting and noticed that it wasn’t raining at all and the water was running under the boat. I jumped in the back and got out and at that moment that part was coming down. The back part rose eight feet into the air and I landed in front of me.”
More than 10 people were rescued by opening the hole. Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service declared a major incident following a “major breach” at the Shropshire Union Canal at Whitchurch Chemical on Monday morning.
According to the service, three boats with a length and width of 50 meters rescued more than 10 people from their officers. Aerial images showed a boat partially suspended over the hole.
