After a week of heavy rain Dalyan is wringing itself out. For the first time for fifteen years the water that came down out of the sky was not absorbed quickly enough by the earth and one hundred and twenty three houses were flooded (about one tenth of all the houses here). Fields looked like boating lakes, some roads became impassible by car or motorbike and the river swelled up to the jetties but thankfully did not break its banks. This is the closest I’ve been to a natural disaster since the great wind storm in the UK in 1987. At first the rain was welcomed by the town as we had a dry winter last year and the water was sorely needed but as the levels of standing water rose rapidly with no signs of the rain abating there was a palpable sense of tension.  

The anticipation ended with washed out homes. Venturing out in a lull the first signs of the human disaster were at the small houses at the bottom of our road. Lots of people were standing around our ‘market’ and the shopkeeper, who owns a small kiosk style outlet, had a mouth the same shape as his droopy handle bar moustache. His shop used to be at road level but after resurfacing ended up lying below it. There was about a foot of water inside and his lower level stock was sitting in it like so many sea sponges. The dwellings behind him are largely one storey village houses inhabited by elderly couples and these are even slightly lower than the shop. Subsequently they had about two foot of water. Wellies were not even an option so where there were husbands they had stout heartedly donned their flip flops and were wading out to the road. Where there were no male spouses the elderly widows sat on their porches bewailing their distress to the naighbours like sad wet kittens. 

In the center of town the main streets were clear but teams of men laboured to clear deluges on side roads with small mobile pumps. Where neighbours and relatives were close at hand furniture was being hauled out to higher areas to dry. The shoe shop ran out of wellies and orders had a waiting list as long as a new Gucci bag. Tan brown rubber footwear continues to be a la mode. 

İ drove down the beach road and looked at young saplings bravely waving a leaf or two over the surface of the water and saw what had formerly been a trickle of a stream rush by in a new steroid enhanced muscular flow. It wasn’t all ugly or sad though, a brilliant blue kingfisher darted out of that stream plump and happy and the fish that live in the lake started to stream through town encouraging a rash of fishermen to descend on their boats for fat catches.  

The newly erected and costly fence round our olive grove in Çandır was pushed aside like spiderwebs when the stream there became a small river and turned off its course and into our land. Thank God it did though, while it may have ploughed through our field and fences, had it overflowed lower down five or six houses on the normal downstream route would have found themselves in severe trouble. Also while we lost fence we gained a huge amount of silt round our trees which will enrich our land and bolster next year’s olive harvest. 

While those whose houses were engulfed can seek help from the authorities and restart their homes some of the domestic and feral animals weren’t so lucky. Our nannies puppy never made it to higher ground with it’s mother and was swept away. Chickens locked up or the night in coops drowned pinned behind wire. Doreen’s dog Barney first peed inside and then unable to stand the indignity threw itself into the water outside, swam to the garden wall, trotted soggily to the end and peed precariously over the edge. The baby’s car seat which we keep in the outside hallway became home to a soggy moggy which was most unhappy at being hoisted back out into the wet and a feral dog looking for respite actually climbed into the basket below the pushchair for a snooze. 

I can only imagine the devastation wreaked on the tortoise and snake population all of which had bedded down underground for the winter. The snakes in their dormant state are unlikely to have survived and İ expect a resultant rash of rats next year. The tortoises İ’m less sure about as İ saw one roaming around (and fair rejoiced to see it) but those forced out of hibernation will be seeking new shelter and using valuable energy at exactly the wrong time of year. 

No one is sure why town flooded, lots of people have been proffering reasons – the old canals have been blocked, new housing has obstructed waterways, global warming, the road improvements have made the road too high, there are less plants to soak up the water, etc etc. All seem to be seeking blame. İn reality Dalyan is still a very lightly developed town and some of the worst hit areas are surrounded by farmland. İn Çandır where thy had similar flash flooding there has been little or no development over the last fifteeen years and they still had problems. İt seems that the ground was just saturated with water from previous weeks and as the water table is high naturally the water just couldn’t get away. 

One thing the floods did demonstrate is the ability of this mixed community to pull together. Gemma told me that as she sloshed through her road and saw her elderly Turkish neighbour sitting on the balcony waiting for the waters to recede she called out to her in broken Turkish to ask did she want anything from the shops –they’ve never spoken before. Scottish Bob called me on the worst night to tell me if there were any families with kids that needed putting up for a couple of weeks his villa was open to all comers. Doreen called me to ask me to get her neighbour Gül’s phone number. Their road was so bad that she couldn’t get down there to check if she was OK. I rang Gül’s old boss Robbi, she went round with her Turkish husband Erden and found the house one of the worst affected in Dalyan. Brian (Doreen’s husband), Erden and Aydın (Gül’s husband) all worked together to move the furniture out while Doreen babysat the kids Mustafa and Mehmet. Then Robbi took them all to her house while Erden looked for a new flat to which Brian is going to donate £800 for new furniture. The water may have washed out old homes but it forged new relationships in its wake.