Families across the north were yesterday beginning the daunting task of rebuilding their lives following the devastation wreaked by this week’s storms.
At Leckmelm near Ullapool – one of the worst affected regions – resident Tom Hughes faces a six-month wait to repair the damage caused by rising flood waters which left huge boulders strewn across his garden and his garage and contents submerged.
Further north, at Drumrunie, a woman described her desperate battle to save her sheep before she was rescued by the Coastguard.
Meryl Carr was trapped inside a shed with her 12 animals and spent three hours baling out water after debris blocked the River Runie.
Leckmelm, on the A835 Ullapool-Tore road, was particularly badly hit after trees and boulders blocked a nearby watercourse.
Locals watched in horror as water levels rose more than 12ft above normal levels during Monday’s storms.
Bear Scotland was finally able to reopen the route yesterday after workers spent three days clearing hundreds of tonnes of debris.
Nearby residents still face months of hard work to repair their properties and gardens.
The front wall of Mr Hughes’ home at Leckmelm Lodge was smashed and workers were using diggers and shovels to clear his driveway yesterday.
Mr Hughes heard the boulders tumbling down the slope and into his garden on Monday morning and went outside to find his land 3ft deep in water and his garage submerged.
He called the fire service to help and had to climb over a side wall to escape.
Mr Hughes said: “When I went across the back steps and jumped over the fence it was like a waterfall coming down from the hill.
“The cleaners have said that it will be a minimum six months till they sort everything out, maybe longer.”
Chef Andy Shaw, who lives across the road, arrived home in the afternoon to find his shed had been swept into his neighbour’s garden and the road in front of his semi-detached farmhouse smashed up by boulders.
He said: “We had sandbags round the doors and scraped a bit of water out.
“The water was coming through the catflap.
“The sewage has gone, we’ll have to move out.”
Caithness, Sutherland and Ross SNP MSP Rob Gibson has called for urgent discussions between Scottish Water, Bear Scotland and Transport Scotland to prevent any repeat of the problems which closed the A835 Tore-Ullapool road.
Meanwhile the north’s top firefighter, Assistant Chief Officer Robert Scott, has praised crews, who responded to 31 incidents in the Highlands in just 24 hours.
The call-outs ranged from Speyside to Sutherland, with Kingussie and Ullapool particularly badly affected.