IMAGINE if heavy rain flooded your home or businesses two years running You’d be forgiven for feeling vulnerable and anxious every time bad weather was forecast.

Well, that’s just how Southend seafront traders feel.

Marine Parade and parts of Eastern Esplanade were flooded again after heavy rain on Friday, September 19, 2014 – a soggy sequel to the deluge they suffered in August 2013.

The fed-up traders say very little has been done to protect seafront businesses since those floods, leaving them anxiously listening out for weather bulletins.

Anglian Water, which is responsible for the storm drains, says it has yet to survey the pipes before it can make any decision about a big investment in improving they system.

However this leaves traders with scant protection, thanks to a system believed to be almost a century ago and no longer up to the job.

Martin Richardson closed the Happidrome for 13 months after suffering two floods, the first only months after he bought the amusement arcade in January 2013.

Between them, he says the two floods have cost him £450,000.

He now keeps all his machines off the ground, chocked up on bricks and has a flood barrier at the entrance to his Marine Parade arcade.

However he believes the main culprit is not the drains, but the design of the City Beach area.

He explained “The drain which was supposed to have been put in between Hartington Road and Southchurch Avenue was not installed. It was withdrawn from the original City Beach plans.

“It’s a daily ritual now. We are constantly looking at the weather forecast and worrying.

September 19 came and went this year and still, nothing has been done down here.”

In the aftermath of last year’s floods, a leaked Anglian Water email admitted its systems were unable to cope with extreme weather and warned of further flooding.

And matters are made worse by a phenomenon known as “tide lock”. When the tide is in, it hampers surface water drains from piping rainwater into the sea, so it water backs up through the system.

That is what led to last September’s catastrophic flooding.

The council has helped two of the other flood-hit seafront businesses, but neither of their owners admits to feeling especially safe.

Karen Slater, licensee of the Falcon pub, in Marine Parade, said her customers had helped out when her pub started flooding out last year.

She said: “The council have installed a gully outside the pub and water flows into that, so that has helped, but there has been little else done.

“The plans for the new Marine Plaza development are a worry, as that site acts as a flood plain, anyway.

“Where else is the water going to divert to if that place is built on?”

George Zinonos, who runs Ye Old Chippy, has also benefited from new flood defences outside his shop, funded by a Government grant.

However, he said: “The only way the situation will be resolved is that if they dig the whole place up and start again.”