DRIVERS have told of their shopping nightmare after being stuck in a supermarket car park for four hours due to flooding.

Motorists were left stranded at the Mayflower retail park, Basildon, after torrential downpours blew a manhole cover on the London-bound carriageway of the A127.

Long queues built up on Cranes Farm Road and Gardiners Lane South as cars were diverted, meaning Mayflower shoppers were unable to leave the car park.

Leona Murray-Green, 41, of Lynderswood, Basildon, spent four hours waiting to leave Tesco after popping in for her weekly food shop.

She said: “I knew the weather was bad, but Basildon doesn’t really suffer with flooding and we had no food in the house.

“As I turned into Gardiners Lane South, I saw the traffic at a standstill, but it was too late then and I couldn’t turn back. It was chaos with people trying to leave.

“People were saying it was like a disaster movie, but I can think of worse places to be stuck. I was planning to get my petrol after the shopping, so I had an empty tank. Some people sat in their cars trying to move for hours, but I couldn’t even do that, so I had to wait in the cafe until it cleared.

“I feel sorry for anyone who had little children with them, it was a nightmare. There were certainly a lot of frustrated and angry people, but it wasn’t anyone’s fault.”

The in-store cafe was so busy with stranded motorists wanting refreshments that staff had to restock the cafe with items from the supermarket shelves.

As the chaos kicked off at about 1.30pm, the Tesco team braved the wet weather to help direct traffic and handout sweets to fed-up drivers.

Duty manager, Kevin Merritt said: “We realised they were stuck there for the long haul, so we wanted to help the best we could.

“The team did a brilliant job and got out to the car park with tins of Quality Street and started directing a bit of traffic. The customers definitely appreciated it and it helped bring their moods up. We had quite a few phone calls thanking us.