Devastated families lose homes as block of flats condemned

Tenants have been put in emergency accommodation after water poured into a run-down block of flats and flooded an electricity cabinet.

Transcript

00:00There were pneumatic drills going most of the evening and it turned out the next morning

00:15of speaking to tenants that the roof had been removed from the building and there was torrential

00:24rain which caused a power cut throughout the whole building and the fire alarms went off.

00:32So the fire brigade came, they couldn't turn off the fire alarms but they regarded the

00:40amount of water inside the building as a fire hazard because the main electrical board for

00:47the whole building was flooded so they dug up the pavement and detached the property

00:56from the national grid and contacted Thamet District Council Emergency Housing and tenants

01:06were found alternative accommodation, quite a few of them outside Margate which is very

01:15difficult for those families who have children going to school in Margate, very disruptive

01:27to their family lives, they've had to abandon their home and all their possessions in the

01:34condemned building and travel elsewhere in Kent, not even in Thamet, to have a roof over

01:43their heads and now that school's started up again that's going to be very difficult

01:51for them, hopefully the council will be able to house them somewhere in Thamet so their

02:01children can continue going to their regular schools.