The town saved from disaster and the £15m project designed to stop it happening again for another 10,000 years

It's well-dressing weekend in Whaley Bridge and in an old workshop just off the high street four women are putting together the intricate boards which will make the up centrepiece of the festival. But despite the upcoming festivities the talk is of just how close the town came to catastrophe four years earlier.

"I got a phone call from my daughter," says Jill Malzard. "She said 'Get out of there'. The village was shutting down, all the roads were closed. The police came to my door and said you've got five minutes get out."

On July 31, 2019 cracks had started to appear in the huge wall of Toddbrook reservoir overlooking the town. There was, police said, a 'very real danger' the dam could collapse, causing disastrous flooding.

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Whaley Bridge's 6,500 residents were told to gather at a school, taking pets and medication with them. A major incident was declared.

Firefighters began pumping millions of gallons of water from the reservoir while RAF Chinook helicopters were drafted in to airlift hundreds of bags of aggregate onto the damaged slipway. Jill Malzard, who is in her mid 80s and has lived in Whaley Bridge for 35 years was one of 1,500 people whose homes were evacuated.

"I picked up stupid things I didn't need," she said. "I got my flannel but didn't take a nightie. I was just numb, but I knew if the dam went the whole house would be gone. The town would just have been swept away."

"It was a very uncomfortable situation," said Julie Sharman, Canal and River Trust chief operating officer. Ms Sharman arrived at the reservoir just moments after the fire brigade and stayed onsite until the early hours.

"We couldn't afford to be complacent, but