:00:14. > :00:19.Good evening, welcome to BBC London News, I'm Chris Rogers.
:00:20. > :00:21.Three weeks ago, around 80 people were evacuated in Islington
:00:22. > :00:25.as a burst water main caused extensive damage.
:00:26. > :00:28.Now BBC London has learnt that many have been unable to return home,
:00:29. > :00:30.while some local businesses fear they may never recover.
:00:31. > :00:43.This is what Jackie's bedroom look like three weeks ago, devastated and
:00:44. > :00:47.completely destroyed by flood water. Almost a month on, it's looking a
:00:48. > :00:52.little better, but there's still a lot of work to be done. And it will
:00:53. > :00:56.mean balls, frames, skirting boards, everything has got to be taken out.
:00:57. > :01:00.Even though she's had to sleep on her sofa, Jackie said the response
:01:01. > :01:03.to the flooding has been efficient. I think all the people that have
:01:04. > :01:08.worked on it have been marvellous. You know, it was slow at the start,
:01:09. > :01:13.it's to take ages for them to get moving, but once they did everyone
:01:14. > :01:15.has done a wonderful job. Around 80 residents in Islington were
:01:16. > :01:20.evacuated after this three foot wide water main burst. Many homes and
:01:21. > :01:24.shops to metres deep in water, the flood also meant that the streets
:01:25. > :01:29.were covered in mud, silt and even rats, and the clean-up effort took
:01:30. > :01:32.days. Today it all looked like it was back to normal but local
:01:33. > :01:35.businesses have been hit hard. Many, like this gallery, lost a lot of
:01:36. > :01:40.their stock before Christmas and are still drawn to get rid of the dump.
:01:41. > :01:45.The financial blow it has had on us, I don't know if we will recover
:01:46. > :01:49.fully from it as an independent business. Our concern collectively
:01:50. > :01:52.as a community is that for a lot of us it is the same, and we fear that
:01:53. > :01:56.for a lot of us it will not survive the impact this will have. Today,
:01:57. > :02:01.Thames Water told us they apologised again to residents and shop owners
:02:02. > :02:04.for the inconvenience. In a statement, they said they were
:02:05. > :02:07.supporting their customer service to put the way to help get their lives
:02:08. > :02:11.back to normal and their insurance claims sorted. This month saw
:02:12. > :02:16.similar floods in Lewisham, Stoke Newington and Streatham, it is
:02:17. > :02:19.because most of the pipes are over 150 years old. Repairing them is now
:02:20. > :02:23.a priority, but here in Camden passage the damage has been done,
:02:24. > :02:27.and the these shots it wasn't a Merry Christmas. Many of them still
:02:28. > :02:29.don't know when they will be open again.
:02:30. > :02:32.Fans have continued to pay tribute to the singer George Michael
:02:33. > :02:36.Flowers and candles have been laid outside his North London home.
:02:37. > :02:39.Stories about the 53-year-olds support for children's and HIV
:02:40. > :02:46.charities have emerged since his death.
:02:47. > :02:52.After nearly 50 years running her shop, Blackheath's Peggy Hawkes
:02:53. > :02:57.passed away, but the community have carried on the day she would have
:02:58. > :03:03.wanted. Sarah Harris explains. It is a shop that has not changed for six
:03:04. > :03:09.decades. Even the till at this store near Blackheath is the same one used
:03:10. > :03:13.in the nostalgic TV comedy, open all hours. It is the way Peggy wanted it
:03:14. > :03:19.to stay for the 43 years she ran it behind the counter. Since her recent
:03:20. > :03:21.death, she has been so sadly missed, her family supported by local
:03:22. > :03:26.volunteers have kept it going in her memory. Some of the people that are
:03:27. > :03:32.sort of out of work and stuff would come in and ask mum for money. And
:03:33. > :03:35.she would quite often say, look, here's a couple of Bob, go and get
:03:36. > :03:39.yourself a cup of the your something like that, and even if someone said
:03:40. > :03:42.to her commune they will never come back with that, and she would say
:03:43. > :03:48.no, if I have made them feel better today than it is worth every penny.
:03:49. > :03:51.Other than a lick of paint, many of the features Peggy Love to have been
:03:52. > :03:55.preserved. Several local customers have been coming here for more than
:03:56. > :04:00.30 years. She was just a really, really nice lady, and it just kind
:04:01. > :04:05.of has an old-fashioned niceness about it, this shop. People came
:04:06. > :04:10.from miles away to come in the shop. Not just because of what she came in
:04:11. > :04:13.the shop but to see my mum. The family said they have had offers to
:04:14. > :04:16.buy the shop all the time, but they are determined to try to keep it
:04:17. > :04:19.going as long as they can with the help of their neighbours in Peggy's
:04:20. > :04:23.memory. A look at the weather
:04:24. > :04:33.now with John Hammond. A wintry night out there and a foggy
:04:34. > :04:36.warning for many of us, the aware of some potential disruption as we had
:04:37. > :04:39.into tomorrow morning Post a lot of rust out there but it is to the
:04:40. > :04:42.early hours that the fog continues to thicken up and it could be quite
:04:43. > :04:45.dense and freezing, with temperatures in some spots well
:04:46. > :04:49.below zero as you step outside in the morning. The fog will take a
:04:50. > :04:52.while to shift, in some cases it won't all day. Hopefully you will
:04:53. > :04:56.see some brightness but where it lingers all day, not much.
:04:57. > :04:59.That's it we're back tomorrow morning in Breakfast.