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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/01/floods-what-happens-next-emergency-planning-water
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| How do you recover from a flood? Here’s what I learned from talking to victims | |
| (about 4 hours later) | |
| For the thousands of people who have been flooded in the last few weeks, life afterwards is only just beginning and is likely to be miserable for a while. | For the thousands of people who have been flooded in the last few weeks, life afterwards is only just beginning and is likely to be miserable for a while. |
| Related: UK floods: your photos and stories | Related: UK floods: your photos and stories |
| Recovering after a flood is a particularly long, drawn-out process, in which the rest of the country moves on while you are stuck in stasis. Your home has been ripped apart in front of you and all your normal rituals are lost. People try to live as before – to keep their children in the same schools, to visit their elderly mother, meet new targets set by their boss – while living in a hotel or their sister-in-law’s back bedroom. It can take as long as 18 months. And then people are never quite the same because of the fear that it will happen again. If you try to forget, your insurance renewal will remind you. And then it does happen again. | Recovering after a flood is a particularly long, drawn-out process, in which the rest of the country moves on while you are stuck in stasis. Your home has been ripped apart in front of you and all your normal rituals are lost. People try to live as before – to keep their children in the same schools, to visit their elderly mother, meet new targets set by their boss – while living in a hotel or their sister-in-law’s back bedroom. It can take as long as 18 months. And then people are never quite the same because of the fear that it will happen again. If you try to forget, your insurance renewal will remind you. And then it does happen again. |
| The “disaster” is not just the flood water itself but the “secondary disaster” it unleashes, particularly the destruction of personal property. I spent five years documenting the aftermath of the 2007 flooding of a village in Doncaster, the wonderful Toll Bar, and people said the worst thing was the loss of people’s “furniture of self” – the lifetime’s collection of little ceramic elephants, the photographs, the memories. | The “disaster” is not just the flood water itself but the “secondary disaster” it unleashes, particularly the destruction of personal property. I spent five years documenting the aftermath of the 2007 flooding of a village in Doncaster, the wonderful Toll Bar, and people said the worst thing was the loss of people’s “furniture of self” – the lifetime’s collection of little ceramic elephants, the photographs, the memories. |
| I have worked with elderly residents from flooded sheltered accommodation who literally have nothing left from their lives before; in less desperate cases there are document restorers who can work with birth certificates and photographs from a life before digital. Part of the problem is that an emergency response can, unsurprisingly, be very hasty – people in the community have an urge to do something, to act; and sometimes, less expectedly, there’s a feeling that there needs to be a clear-up well under way in time for a VIP visit. Everything is therefore thrown out. | I have worked with elderly residents from flooded sheltered accommodation who literally have nothing left from their lives before; in less desperate cases there are document restorers who can work with birth certificates and photographs from a life before digital. Part of the problem is that an emergency response can, unsurprisingly, be very hasty – people in the community have an urge to do something, to act; and sometimes, less expectedly, there’s a feeling that there needs to be a clear-up well under way in time for a VIP visit. Everything is therefore thrown out. |
| Emergency planning is militaristic in origin and prone to an emphasis on the idea that you are lucky to be alive and everything else is trivial. But it’s crushingly hard to find the wherewithal to rebuild when you have lost so much from your home. I always feel a knot in my stomach when I see the “next morning” images of skips in the papers. In the past, conflicting health advice has meant people put their entire lives in a skip – passports, war medals, photo albums. I have tried to get to the bottom of why, and I think a lot of it stems from justified concerns about sewage and contamination but also a need to “tidy up” and just get that stage over with. I now work with different agencies which try to encourage people to take a bit more time over decisions. | Emergency planning is militaristic in origin and prone to an emphasis on the idea that you are lucky to be alive and everything else is trivial. But it’s crushingly hard to find the wherewithal to rebuild when you have lost so much from your home. I always feel a knot in my stomach when I see the “next morning” images of skips in the papers. In the past, conflicting health advice has meant people put their entire lives in a skip – passports, war medals, photo albums. I have tried to get to the bottom of why, and I think a lot of it stems from justified concerns about sewage and contamination but also a need to “tidy up” and just get that stage over with. I now work with different agencies which try to encourage people to take a bit more time over decisions. |
| Along with the pain of clearing out your home, there is also the trial of trying to claim on your insurance. So much work has been done with the insurance industry in the last decade to make the process more human, but it’s still bureaucratic and an element that feels out of your control. One family in Hull in 2007 logged 19 calls to the insurer in one day when their temporary accommodation payment bounced. | Along with the pain of clearing out your home, there is also the trial of trying to claim on your insurance. So much work has been done with the insurance industry in the last decade to make the process more human, but it’s still bureaucratic and an element that feels out of your control. One family in Hull in 2007 logged 19 calls to the insurer in one day when their temporary accommodation payment bounced. |
| In the past, conflicting health advice has meant people put their entire lives in a skip – passports, photo albums | In the past, conflicting health advice has meant people put their entire lives in a skip – passports, photo albums |
| The most heart breaking aspect of flooding for me though – so gut-wrenching when you’ve seen it at close quarters that I haven’t been able to watch recent events unfold on TV – is that I am not sure there is much more we can do to make all this any better for the people affected. The initial flood happens, but then they have to live in the disaster for the next year. They are in fight or flight mode for all that time, their adrenal glands quickly exhausted. When areas flood for a second time, within a short period, there is a real risk that people feel broken. | The most heart breaking aspect of flooding for me though – so gut-wrenching when you’ve seen it at close quarters that I haven’t been able to watch recent events unfold on TV – is that I am not sure there is much more we can do to make all this any better for the people affected. The initial flood happens, but then they have to live in the disaster for the next year. They are in fight or flight mode for all that time, their adrenal glands quickly exhausted. When areas flood for a second time, within a short period, there is a real risk that people feel broken. |
| The public are often unaware of the amount of work done by local authority emergency planners who work 365 days a year to plan for these events – rest centres don’t just spring up, voluntary organisations need co-ordination, the Environment Agency and the emergency planners in the local authority, and their link people at the Department of Communities and Local Government, will have been responding all over Christmas and new year. It’s then their job to start sorting out all the paperwork, funding and administration for the coming year. In my work I describe this as the Bricolage of Recovery – the hidden, “odd jobs” of recovering a community. | The public are often unaware of the amount of work done by local authority emergency planners who work 365 days a year to plan for these events – rest centres don’t just spring up, voluntary organisations need co-ordination, the Environment Agency and the emergency planners in the local authority, and their link people at the Department of Communities and Local Government, will have been responding all over Christmas and new year. It’s then their job to start sorting out all the paperwork, funding and administration for the coming year. In my work I describe this as the Bricolage of Recovery – the hidden, “odd jobs” of recovering a community. |
| Many of these workers have been vulnerable to cuts and teams have been reduced, but the one or two people left in an area will work tirelessly over the next year to try to implement the various schemes and financial packages and also build back areas that are scarred with silt. | Many of these workers have been vulnerable to cuts and teams have been reduced, but the one or two people left in an area will work tirelessly over the next year to try to implement the various schemes and financial packages and also build back areas that are scarred with silt. |
| One local authority said to me recently – which terrified me – that recovering from floods is now “normal business”. They get over one and have to start preparing for the next. These are the same people who plan for major sports events, who work out how to respond to a pandemic, a terrorist attack in their town centre or a coach crash on the motorway. It’s a privilege to work with them but my biggest frustration is that people are unaware of what they do, how stretched they are and how vital their work is. | One local authority said to me recently – which terrified me – that recovering from floods is now “normal business”. They get over one and have to start preparing for the next. These are the same people who plan for major sports events, who work out how to respond to a pandemic, a terrorist attack in their town centre or a coach crash on the motorway. It’s a privilege to work with them but my biggest frustration is that people are unaware of what they do, how stretched they are and how vital their work is. |
| Related: Pulling the plug on floods | Related: Pulling the plug on floods |
| In the past weeks, the military will have done wonderful work but they will soon have to leave flood-struck communities. As a nation, we need to embrace the concept that this is going to happen more and work with UK communities on disaster resilience – there is so much to learn from countries which have volatile climates about increasing family and community preparedness. The US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand all instruct their citizens from primary school in disaster preparedness. We need this in the UK too, and it has to endure beyond a four-year parliamentary cycle. We need 20 years of sustained commitment. | In the past weeks, the military will have done wonderful work but they will soon have to leave flood-struck communities. As a nation, we need to embrace the concept that this is going to happen more and work with UK communities on disaster resilience – there is so much to learn from countries which have volatile climates about increasing family and community preparedness. The US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand all instruct their citizens from primary school in disaster preparedness. We need this in the UK too, and it has to endure beyond a four-year parliamentary cycle. We need 20 years of sustained commitment. |
| When it comes to thinking about these issues personally, I have become a bit of a “prepper”, and in my head I have a family emergency plan, although I would hate to ever have to put this theory into practice (and, as many family and friends have pointed out, most normal people don’t live like this). | When it comes to thinking about these issues personally, I have become a bit of a “prepper”, and in my head I have a family emergency plan, although I would hate to ever have to put this theory into practice (and, as many family and friends have pointed out, most normal people don’t live like this). |
| The government needs to look again at the Pitt Review, which was initiated after the 2007 floods, rather than just do another review, which will probably say the same thing. And it’s up to both politicians and the public to keep flooding high on the agenda, even when it’s a balmy barbecue summer and furthest from most people’s minds. Everyone’s minds, in fact, except those who have experienced the fear and loss of flooding. | The government needs to look again at the Pitt Review, which was initiated after the 2007 floods, rather than just do another review, which will probably say the same thing. And it’s up to both politicians and the public to keep flooding high on the agenda, even when it’s a balmy barbecue summer and furthest from most people’s minds. Everyone’s minds, in fact, except those who have experienced the fear and loss of flooding. |
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