Roads and homes were flooded and hundreds of people left without power today as heavy rain and melting snow caused chaos across the county.

Oxfordshire was expected to wake to a heavy blanket of snow but was hit by floodwaters instead, with 10 rivers and streams still on Flood Watch tonight.

Five hundred homes were left without power after 18 reported power faults on n last night and this morning, while fire crews had seven call-outs to pump water out of gardens, homes and streets.

Four homes in Kennington, near Oxford, were flooded after the torrential downpour.

Homes in Milton Heights, Didcot, and Mill Lane, Marcham, needed sandbags to keep rising water away, while in Chalgrove six inches of water flooded two front gardens.

Several roads were closed and others only just passable. The A4074 was closed between Oxford and Nuneham Courtenay, as was the A4130 Abingdon Road in Didcot and out to the B4106.

The B4445 Chinnor Road in Thame, Park Lane near Stanford in the Vale, and roads around Great Milton, West Hanney, Wheatley, Henton, and Woodeaton were also closed, while some in Chalgrove, Farmoor and Harwell were only just passable.

In Kennington, residents claimed a broken culvert failed to cope with the melting snow with water rising to 12in deep.

Thames Water was due to fix the culvert next week following complaints from residents and Dilys Cale, 72, of Upper Road, in Kennington, said: “I can’t get out of my house. It’s a torrent in my back garden, like a raging river.

“The broken culvert cannot take this amount of water.”

Water began pouring out of the culvert in Upper Road and down the hill to Kennington Road at about 6pm on Monday.

Mark Blair, 58, of Perkins, said: “The water was lapping at my door until the sandbags arrived.

“I was very worried, I didn’t sleep at all and got everything up off the floor. This is the worst it’s ever been.”

Neighbour Eddie Creed, 71, said: “It wasn’t until the fireman came with the sandbags we could hold back the water. There was so much water everywhere, Thames Water must fix that culvert.”

A spokesman for Thames Water said work on the broken culvert in Kennington would begin on Monday and had been delayed due to the bad weather in the past month.

A spokesman for Southern Electric said the 18 power faults were an unusually high amount.

The Environment Agency placed rivers across Oxfordshire on Flood Watch including the Thames, Ock, Letcombe Brook, Evenlode, Windrush, Ray and Cherwell, Ginge Brook, the Thame, and Chalgrove Brook.

mwilkinson@oxfordmail.co.uk