Nearly three months after water swept through Rawcliffe homes, the streets are still lined with caravans.

Residents have spent the winter, including Christmas and New Year, in vans parked beside the brick shells that used to be their homes.

Others who took City of York Council's offer of alternative accommodation, or who moved into the homes of family or friends, return regularly to view efforts to reverse the damage.

They're met by a depressing scene.

Ground floor rooms have been stripped. Dehumidifiers are still pulling water out of the walls, saturated by the three foot of water that filled the homes on November 3.

"It's a day that is permanently etched on my memory," said Jo Southern, who has been camped outside her Shipton Road home with her husband, Morris, since.

"The worst thing was watching the water coming up, and knowing there was absolutely nothing we could do to stop it."

Residents are only now being told work can start on rebuilding their homes. The walls are drying at last, and plastering can start.

The plaster takes six weeks to dry, then decorating and re-wiring can begin.

"It's still going to be a month or two before we can move back in," said Mrs Southern.

"We didn't think it was going to take so long, but we've just got to get along with it. It's being done, but it's just a slow process."

Caravan life is something the Southerns will not miss.

"I can recommend caravans for a weekend at the beach, but I never want to see one again," said Mr Southern.

"It gets so cold, and when the traffic goes past you feel it shake."

Further down the street, Joan and Sid Orpe have also spent the past 11 weeks in a caravan.

Mrs Orpe said: "It seems to get smaller every day, but we would rather be here, next to the house, than be in other accommodation elsewhere."

The couple have just received the news that their walls have dried, and work can start.

"I don't think anybody can imagine what this is like until it happens to them, and I just hope it never happens again," said Mrs Orpe.

"Every time I hear the rain on the caravan roof, I panic."

Nobody has a bad word for the actions of rescue teams on the night the water hit Rawcliffe.

Since then, Rawcliffe Beck and the area's drains have been cleaned. The feeling is widespread that this was a freak event.

Margaret Walker, who welcomed Prince Charles into her destroyed home when he visited the area in November, said: "I'm still living with friends, but I come round here every day. It still feels like I've got a home if I can come here.

"It might only be 11 weeks since this happened, but it feels like 11 months. I dream of moving back in, but there's no suggestion of how long it might be. I am definitely hoping to be back by the summer. At the moment, I'm living from carrier bag to carrier bag, and I do get a bit neurotic when I hear the rain."

Again, she praises the workers who helped move her from her house.

But, she said, information seems lacking now.

"Nobody seems to be in evidence now," she said.

"We've heard nothing, and it would be nice if we could be contacted and be told what is being done to make sure it won't happen again."

Next door, Alf Ludlow, his wife and son, have been living in two upstairs rooms since the floods. One bedroom doubles as a kitchen, another as a lounge.

His house is being designed specially with flooding in mind, with power points positioned at waist height and special plastering which can be quickly stripped and replaced.

He said: "If it did happen again, hopefully it wouldn't be that much of an upheaval."

But the widespread hope is that the worst flooding York has seen in 400 years will not be seen again.

Mrs Orpe said: "I feel now that I have lost my life, and I want it back. I have worked a lifetime on this house and it was just the way we wanted it.

"If it happens again, then that's it. Nothing would get me to go back into that house again."

Updated: 11:36 Monday, January 29, 2001