Dozens of people, including a mother in labour, had to be rescued after a freak hailstorm left a Devon town cut off by floodwater.

More than a foot of hail fell on Ottery St Mary, near Honiton, early yesterday morning.

Mounds of ice clogged drains, buried cars and trapped a fire engine in a drift up to 6ft deep as floodwater inundated homes and blocked roads.

The storm struck as Juliet Hall, who was having contractions, was being driven to hospital by her husband, Philip. The couple needed to be rescued twice, as first their car and then an ambulance became trapped by rising floodwater.

They eventually reached hospital after being transferred to another ambulance in a police Land Rover.

Last night Mrs Hall and her newborn son, Nathan, were recovering in hospital none the worse for the ordeal.

The storm was described by the Met Office as a “freak event”. An official said: “The weather system which caused chaos in and around the town had a radius of not much more than two miles. It probably is one of those occasions when we can call it a freak event.” Residents described hearing a roar punctuated by thunder as the heavens opened and a torrent of hailstones struck their homes.

Sarah Galliford said: “I was woken up by the sound of hailstones thundering down on the roof. I thought it was the end of the world. I looked outside and there was a river of ice coming down the street. I saw a couple of people literally running for their lives. It was a total freak of nature. It wasn’t even on the weather forecast. They said there would be rain, but nothing like this. It was absolutely crazy. The sound was amazing and the weather was so bad you just couldn’t see anything.”

David Garland, whose home was completely flooded, said: “It happened in a matter of minutes and all of a sudden the whole house was deluged. I didn’t have time to save anything at all because it happened so quickly. Everything was ruined.”

As the water rose the emergency services, including a coastguard helicopter, rescued dozens of people who were trapped in their cars and homes. Farmers fear that hundreds of sheep and cattle may have drowned.

A representative of Devon & Somerset Fire and Rescue Service said: “Around one foot of hail fell in just two hours between 1am and 3am. Cars in the town were left tightly packed in ice and the drains were blocked, meaning the water had nowhere to go.”

Mike Dunning, of the Environment Agency, said: “What we’ve seen is a very unusual combination of extreme weather and circumstances that were unforeseeable and freakish. The situation was made worse by two cars that were washed into a brook leading into Ottery St Mary. The blockage impeded the flow of water. It backed up and then everything spilt out over the roads and into the town.”

The only people celebrating yesterday were Juliet and Phil Hall after the birth of Nathan at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital. Nathan arrived three weeks early, weighing 6lb 10½oz. Weather, page 82