'Rivers where there used to be side streets': caught in York's flood

When my hometown flooded I thought it was no big deal, but after venturing into the city centre, it felt like the beginnings of an apocalypse

You always think, when you hear about people who ignore the warnings and go out in hurricanes, or refuse to be evacuated from fires, that you would never be so reckless and would get right away at the first sign of danger. Then my hometown, York, flooded and I thought, well, it floods every year and we usually walk into my favourite pub, the Lowther, on a gangplank raised over the water, so we're all used to this. People who live beside the river always get their sandbags out. It's no big deal.

Which is why on Sunday, I still walked into the city centre from the suburb of Fulford, even though my route had to change three times as more and more roads were cut off by the rising tide. Even though every street I walked past had people standing in the road just to look at the floods, taking photos and striking up chats with complete strangers to debate whether, say, that garage had been so far underwater in 2000, or was this the worst York flood ever?

Related: UK floods: people told to waterproof homes because of increase in 'unknown extremes' - live