Jimboland
Member Since: 06 Dec 2015
Location: Northants
Posts: 714
 
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It must be sheer hell to be in a situation like that JulesK. I once had a job where we cleaned up flood damage on behalf of an insurance company. Not a nice thing to deal with going through personal belongings and totally devastating in some cases we went to.
However it never ceases to amaze me , the utter dingbats who appear on TV news who knowingly live on a flood plain ,stood in their front room wearing wellys ,while the armchair goes floating by, crying because they've lost their wedding photo album, passports, family portraits, important documents etc.
All items that any sane person living in the same area would keep upstairs. 
"We were woken at 7am as it was running down the road, it was up to my ankles at 9am, but by 5pm it was waste deep." and you didn't think to take 5 minutes to put those items upstairs ?? "This is the third time it's happened in x amount of years." and they still haven't learned 
Unless, of course, it's for "insurance purposes".[/quote]
It's not always as simple as that. While some people do lack common sense and don't think about these sort of things there are many others, the old and infirm for example, who are unable to do so for many valid reasons. I know of an elderly lady who was not so fast on her feet or with her thinking tried to carry some things upstairs when flash flooding occured (flooding was previously unknow in that area). After two trips upstairs she was knackered and could do no more and the water was rising very quickly. She had to be rescued, it was a matter of life and death. Eventually she was able to return to her devastated home where so many possessions were just a soggy mess. Her greatest loss was the family Bible in which she kept family photographs of the deceased husband and her grown up children, who had emigrated to Australia, and her grandchildren. She used to look at the photos every day. The loss to her was so great that the shock of the loss caused her death. I would suggest that the vast majority of us on this forum are young(ish) and able in body and mind where it is easy to dismiss those who don't take what we would call common sense actions but not everybody is able to take those actions especially the elderly and those we should keep a neighbourly eye on.
J
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4th Aug 2019 8:22 am |
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) tend to pick up personal belongings providing of course its safe to do so, my neighbours Son is a fireman and he has said exactly the same to me when I have mentioned the huge personal loss in a fire of things that cannot be replaced.
The firemans face was a picture 
cleaning crew had a very nice Solway zipper and record collection away 
).
