A senior coroner said a delay to install warning signs was a factor in the deaths of Elaine and Philip Marco in 2023
Elaine and Philip Marco died after becoming trapped in their car in a flooded road in Liverpool(Image: Merseyside Police/PA Wire )
Liverpool Council failed to acknowledge the risk to life at an area known to flood and delayed the installation of warning signs where a couple died, a coroner has concluded. On the final day of the inquest into the deaths of Elaine and Philip Marco on Queens Drive in August 2023, senior coroner Andre Rebello said the city council did not appreciate the risk of flooding under the bridge in Mossley Hill despite four previous events earlier that year.
The city council’s claims an independent investigation it ordered into the repeated flooding was not linked to risk to life fears, was rejected by Mr Rebello as he recorded a conclusion of misadventure.
The coroner said the council’s delay in installing warning signs near the dip in the road was considered to be a failure on its part.
Reaching his conclusion, the coroner said the deaths were in part caused by the absence of these signs and a failure to acknowledge risk by the council.
Mr Rebello said it was likely that a bow wave in front of the Marcos’ car caused water to be drawn into the vehicle’s air intake system causing the engine to hydrolock, preventing the car from being driven.
Mr and Mrs Marco, retired caterers who lived on Pennyford Drive, had been travelling home from a family gathering where they had celebrated their son Joshua’s 40th birthday.
The coroner concluded that as they drove home another vehicle entered the flood water from the opposite direction causing another bow wave, adding turbulence which contributed to the engine stopping.
The scene on Queens Drive in the Mossley Hill area of Liverpool, where two people died after driving a car into a flood(Image: Julian Hamilton/Daily Mirror)
This stranded the grandparents in their car. The coroner concluded the depth of the standing water needed to have been no more than 150-200mm for the water to have entered the air intake system.
Such was the intensity of the extreme rainfall, the combined sewer beneath the road became overwhelmed, which the coroner said resulted in a “violent” sewer surcharge, flooding the road to a depth of 3m and length of 182m, submerging the Marcos’ car.
Mr Rebello paid tribute to the “heroic” firefighters who risked their lives in an attempt to rescue the couple.
The coroner said Liverpool Council would have been aware of the lack of signage warning drivers since the construction of the road almost 100 years ago.
He found that as the lead local flood authority, the council did not appreciate the risk of flooding on Queens Drive represented a risk to life.
Mr Rebello cited four previous floods in May, June and July 2023 in which occupants of vehicles had to be rescued.
The coroner wrote in the record of inquest how despite council staff indicating an independent report into the flooding was due to flooding to a critical highway, the court preferred the evidence of contemporaneous note takers at a meeting on August 15 that it was commissioned due to a concern as to risk for life.
Liverpool Coroner Andre Rebello
Mr Rebello recorded how the installation of warning signs and barriers after the Marcos’ death had been reactive and there “was always a risk to life due to flooding when there was very heavy rainfall in this location since the arterial road was created.”
He added: “The risk has increased with urban development and because of the more adverse precipitation which is likely to be a consequence of climate change over the decades.
“The delay in introducing signage and barriers is found to be a failure, as such measures are likely to forewarn drivers of the risks, including the risk to life.”
Recording the conclusion of misadventure, the coroner said: “Namely a vehicle has driven during torrential rain into standing water with water entering the air inlets stopping the engine stranding the vehicle, the rain had then overwhelmed the gullies and combined sewer, flooding the road and submerging vehicle; in part caused by the absence of flood warning signage and a failure of the risk to life being recognised.”