The BBC online \u201clive reporting\u201d of events during Storm Desmond has been illuminating \u2013 that\u2019s if of course you\u2019ve had electricity. Many people in the affected zones had none, and with no mobile phone coverage over the weekend, battery or wind-up radio would have been their only source of information.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnprecedented\u201d has been the mantra of politicians, claiming that flooding such as this is an infrequent occurrence. But tell that to the people in Carlisle who are now flooded out of their homes for the second time in ten years\u00a0or Cockermouth for the fourth time\u00a0in ten years. Or to people in Hull where more than 8,000 homes were flooded in 2007. Severe flooding should now be expected.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s it really like clearing up after a major flood? In our evidence to the Government\u2019s Pitt Review into the 2007 floods<\/a> based on our research into their effects on Hull<\/a> we tried to convey some of what people had told us.<\/p>\n For example, some were unsure what needed to be thrown out:<\/p>\n \u2018We lost the fridge and the freezer and the cooker in the kitchen but the scary thing was we were actually still using them \u2013 nobody condemned them or even suggested that they were contaminated until we moved out. And then they said, \u201cOh you shouldn\u2019t have been using them\u201d. You find out different things from different people. Just by talking to your neighbours \u2013 they\u2019d been told a completely different story to what you\u2019re getting told by the insurance company.\u2019<\/p>\n Uncertainties around insurance become a source of huge anxiety:<\/p>\n \u2018They say a lot of people didn\u2019t have insurance and now some who are trying to get some have been refused by three different high-risk specialist companies. Those that have claimed can\u2019t seem to get renewals…\u2019<\/p>\n Finding somewhere to live when you are flooded out of your home reveals some of the iniquities of the market, and how people can be exploited in the face of a disaster:<\/p>\n \u2018I was very relieved to move out of our home so that the drying could start, but I\u2019m convinced that our insurance company and ourselves are being ripped off, being charged \u00a3850 a month for it. Prior to the floods, there\u2019s no way they\u2019d have got that amount of rent.\u2019<\/p>\n In fact project managing the recovery takes over everything:<\/p>\n \u2018Left another message [with loss adjustor] \u2013 no response. If he would just call me back, it\u2019s so frustrating. This seems to be taking up my whole life \u2013 god, what did I do before the flood?\u2019<\/p>\n What our work on the floods in Hull showed was that no one talked to the children who\u2019d lost their homes and social networks<\/a>. In our current research<\/a> we\u2019re working with a group of children in South Ferriby (Humberside) who were flooded on December 5 2013 during the storm surge of that winter, exactly two years ago to the day from Storm Desmond. These children and another group from Staines-Upon-Thames (severely flooded in February 2014) have made a film<\/a> and produced Flood Manifestos for Change.<\/p>\n These manifestos call for further measures to help prepare for, manage and recover from floods<\/a> such as lessons in school about flooding and other emergencies; teachers to be trained about floods and how they affect people; groups set up for children affected so they can talk and get support; insurance companies to listen more to what children and families need; clearer flood warnings that people can understand and better flood defences with more building on stilts.<\/p>\n Because they\u2019ve survived floods (at considerable cost) these children can cut through bureaucracy. Such multiple measures are needed to help prevent, prepare and recover from floods.\u00a0 It\u2019s widely accepted that in the UK flood emergency response itself is effective and caring, but we also know that recovery is long, complex and does not follow in a linear path (Hull Children\u2019s Flood project\/final report<\/a>). We know that what matters to people now is how they are treated by agencies and organisations; how they can look after their health; how they can find support from people who understand and, a little later, how they can participate in resilience work so that they do not fall prey to fatalism and depression.<\/p>\n \u2018You feel like you\u2019ve lost a year of your life\u2019 (Male student, 14, Staines-Upon-Thames)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The BBC online \u201clive reporting\u201d of events during Storm Desmond has been illuminating \u2013 that\u2019s if of course you\u2019ve had electricity. Many people in the affected zones had none, and with no mobile phone coverage over the weekend, battery or wind-up radio would have been their only source of information. \u201cUnprecedented\u201d has been the mantra[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":482,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-portuguese-pt"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/cuidar\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Childs-Logo-1.jpg?fit=635%2C635&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p70rsT-cF","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/cuidar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/cuidar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/cuidar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/cuidar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/cuidar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=785"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/cuidar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1417,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/cuidar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785\/revisions\/1417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/cuidar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/cuidar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/cuidar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/cuidar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}