Floods.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember ":Jerry:" saying something like:

Bollocks.

[zikkimalambo]

Well, it has to be said, neither my wife or daughters have offered to empty the Portapotti yet.

I was a little concerned at first, and when I saw that one of the other campers looked like he was kitted out in a full biological warfare suit, I wondered what I had gotten myself into, but it really is no big deal.

We do use loo blue which may help, but it really isn't much of a problem.

[Mary Fisher]

...

Quite. And I've accumulated many years of changing nappies and washing them, through two generations. Stinking flood water wouldn't be a problem.

I'm reminded of when daughter in law had a flooded house because of a blockage in the sewer. She was appalled when the engineer put his arem into the pipe but even moreso when he gave her a pen with his unwashed hand to sign the necessary completeion form :-)

She's a very sensitive plant!

Mary

>

[The Natural Philosopher]

It would to any health inspector. Nt dumb as dipshit bro-in-lwa dive hi scar into a fllood, where it stoped. I towed hom out, but the insurance company write it off instantly: No car wahich has been in a flood is ALLOWED to be re-used.

Seen all that crap on TV about 'we will replace your child seat even if it appears to be undamaged after an accident' Bollocks. They HAVE to.

Or the case of the guy in a cottage, whose stream dried up..he complained to the Authorities, they took one look at his outside toilet, stream fed tank water, and condemned the whole place as unfit for habitation, and told him to find somewhere else.

YOU may be able to cope with flood damage. THEY may not LET you.

[Weatherlawyer]

That is a good attitude to have but it is a difficult one to keep swallowing every time you enter a wrecked house.

Marks and Sparks for one never get insurance as the cost of insuring their premisses was more than the cost of replacing entirely, any one of their stores in any year. I suppose most people have some sort of similar thought when they neglect to insure. It is money wasted until it is needed/ too late.

As for rebuilding for one's selves, how do you go about financing a complete strip of the lower part of an house that need rewiring and new plaster, that is besides the day to day needs that all of a sudden became even more difficult to fulfil?

This is in a section of a community that is already on its uppers. All of a sudden, the little sidelines that kept the wolf from the door have evanesced. The main employment if it existed, has become harder to get to and from, local shops are wiped out and more distant stores doubly hard to get to.

You say one can rely on the family but even among family members, the strain of modern life has taken a toll. I doubt very much if there is a community spirit in place where new homes were built on flood plains a few decades ago.

For that was the era when TV replaced community spirit and very little has improved since.

[Matt]

Ooh I never knew that. So a car that ended up under 6 feet of water in 1973, was hosed out and left to dry in the sun for six weeks and that I still occasionally drive every summer is illegal then?

[tony sayer]

In article , Matt writes

Well in 1973 they weren't full of electronic systems that don't like water, even clean water, let alone what's in Flood water..

[The Natural Philosopher]

Probably. yes.

The issue for the insurers was that it had no resale value as a car. It had to be scrapped.

NOTHING that has been in contact with doom laden flood waters is allowed to come into contact with yuman beans again apparently :-)

Despite the fact that this was a nice stream that had simply overflowed its banks when the dipstick drive into it.

[The Natural Philosopher]

It was a health and safety issue, not an electrics problem.

[tony sayer]

'elf 'n saftee!... the universal gotcha clause!....

[The Natural Philosopher]

Yup. Instead of 0.01p a year in NHS taxes you get to pay £10 a year in increased insurance.