Bermudians caught up in the devastating flooding that has ravaged Texas spoke yesterday about their terrifying brush with Hurricane Harvey and the aftermath of the storm.

David Strong told The Royal Gazette that he had lost his car in the flooding when his street was swamped with water, forcing him to move to his father’s nearby home.

Meanwhile, Jeff Ryall described how he had to kick through the panels of his garden fence to prevent the water level outside his home rising to dangerous levels.

Residents across Texas are battling to recover from the flooding caused by the Category 4 storm, which dumped a record-breaking amount of rain on the state at the end of last month.

Mr Strong, a Bermudian who lived on the island for 25 years before moving to Cypress, Texas, in July 2013, said the bottom floor of his home was completely flooded by the storm.

“I lost my car and was only just able to move back into my home at the weekend,” he said.

“I have never experienced anything like that before, and there were certainly times when I was extremely worried I was going to have to call for help to get evacuated by helicopter.

“I was not so much worried about drowning, but more about electric wires falling and other things like snakes and alligators.”

He added: “At its worst, the water level on our street came up to waist high, so you had to wade through it to get out. But now things are slowly starting to return to normal.

“The flooding came as quickly as it went. The severity of it did not hit me until the water had receded and I went for a drive and saw the damage it had done. I was certainly one of the lucky ones.”

At least 33 people are known to have died across Texas, while thousands of people have fled their homes to emergency shelters.

The rainfall in Texas set a new record for the continental US, the National Weather Service has said. A rain gauge in Cedar Bayou recorded 51.88 inches of rain from August 25 to August 30.

Mr Ryall, who moved to Meyerland, Houston, in 1990, was due to fly back to Bermuda towards the end of last month to be with family but had to cancel his plans due to Hurricane Harvey.

“We had one night where the rain just came down big time, it was so fast,” he said.

“Our back yard was filling up so quickly the water level was almost up to the back door, the street outside was looking like a river.

“I had to bust open my back fence just to give the water somewhere to escape. My brother-in-law, who lives nearby, has been flooded out and when I was able to drive up the road some of the routes were barely recognisable.

“We were lucky in many ways; the water did not come in the house at all. We just stayed where we were, and now it’s back to normal in some areas.”