Arklow is awash as the sandbags pile higher

For 40 hours the skies wept bitter rain, battering all things human and inanimate, but when the high tide rose up in collaboration with the heavens, Arklow didn't stand a chance.

River became torrent, marshland a vast lake cut through by swift currents. Gardens and boardwalks were co-opted as aqueducts by the raging waters, roads and houses started disappearing under sloshing brown muck.

"Now that's a bad night," said the good citizens of Ferrybank, on the left bank of the Avoca river, as they headed off to bed on Sunday night. Little could they have known they were to wake up to a sodden world, their basements and gardens submerged by the teeming waters.

"See that tree," says Dr Nick Buggle, pointing to a few branches pushing up above the flood 20 metres away. "That was the end of our garden until this morning. I've seen flooding but nothing like this, the levels shot up over two feet in the space of a night."

Inside, the Buggle household was chaos below, calm above. A foot of slimy water eddied around the living room and kitchen downstairs, carrying record covers, children's toys and empty cans along with it. The Aga stove remained stubbornly lit, but foodstuffs, books and carpets were soaked. While her three children delighted in a day off school, Susan Buggle worried about what was ahead. "They say there's more to come. All we can do is wait, but at least we have upper floors. And for dinner, there's always the Chinese takeaway."

Not everyone was so fortunate, or so stoic. More than 50 residents spent last night in a local hotel, having been rescued from their homes by Civil Defence teams and fire fighters. Arklow's townspeople were left to dwell on their cruel fortune; while life continued as normal on the main street, houses and shops down by the Avoca, only a few yards away, lay in ruins.

As the afternoon progressed, the 19 arches under the town's sole bridge filled up with the noisy torrent, a far cry from the "soothing waters" Thomas Moore once wrote about. To the right, the river burst its banks, spreading into woodland and marshlands, with treetops providing the only indication of where the land used to lie.

There was only one way into Ferrybank from the Dublin-Wexford road yesterday, and that involved leaving your car at the outskirts of the town, rolling up your trousers and wading across the floods. At the height of the floods, the water reached to thigh heights.

Global warming? An Act of God? Well, maybe, but Arklow has been through this before, during Hurricane Charlie in 1986. With most of south Wicklow's rivers emptying out to sea at this point, the town is long familiar with flooding. As a plaque on the bridge notes, Arklow was once known as "the marsh".

"This town has been decimated, and it's all because of politicians sitting on the fence," says local resident John Swan, who had to be rescued when his car stalled in the floods early yesterday morning.

"After Hurricane Charlie, the council promised to fence off the marsh area to the north of the town but we're still waiting for this to happen."

But as the sandbags piled higher last night, local people were keeping their sense of perspective. As Nick Buggle pointed out: "Compared to what we saw happen in Mozambique this year, this is child's play".