After Storms Ciara, Dennis and Jorge, the local communities of South Wales, come together to aid flood victims.
Rosy Philips, a midwife recalls how her friend’s house has been completely flooded, she’s had to move out and everything inside has just been completely ruined.
“She’s staying with her mother but she’s got a little girl as well so they’ve both had to move out.”
Rosy’s friend is not the only one affected by the recent floods. “Some people that we know [have been affected], their whole lower levels of their house is totally wrecked, they’ve lost their cars [and] some DJ equipment,” says Hayley Thomas, a full-time mum.
The recent flooding in Porth, a small town in the Welsh valleys has devastated the local community.
According to calculations by the home interiors business Hillarys, cited here, Storm Ciara on its own inflicted £7.75bn damage to UK households.
“I know a few people who thought they were going to get flooded obviously they had to move all of their possessions, luckily they didn’t,” says Matthew Jones, training manager at the NHS.
“Being the close-knit community that we are even if it’s someone you don’t know you want to help because it’s a situation you wouldn’t want to be in yourself.”
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“I think the day after the floods I was seeing posts on Facebook of people offering up clothes, food, electricians offering their services for free.”
Local resident Kelly concurs with this suggesting that The government should definitely be sending more supplies, as so far she has only seen local businesses offering aid and no government officials.
Mohammed Khan, the general insurance leader and partner at PwC, notes that early indications suggest Storm Ciara will be responsible for around £200m worth of losses for homes.
David Holden, who works at High Court Enforcement argues that the recent floods are a hindrance and that the council should be doing more to help. He argues that on the day of the floods they put up a rain warning not a flooding warning.
“I think maybe the current structure was sound but I think we’ve had an unusual event this last six weeks where it’s been [a] non-stop downpour,” says Jones.
Storm Dennis is estimated to cost £225m, according to the Guardian, which will take the cost to insurance companies of the two storms to £425m.
While other residents, like Leah Evans who is currently unemployed argues that the Water Board and council are both to be blamed. As well as this, she argues that the government should be doing more to help.
“Going back a few years ago when there was really bad flooding [nearby] and they had the army in and everything and it was all over the news whereas it happened here and the Welsh government is trying to help [but nobody else seems interested],” argues Williams.
“[It’s] definitely [more the national government’s fault.”
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Philips suggests that it is a case of needing to putting measures in place in order to stop it from happening again as prevention is better than cure.
Thomas contends that “[Porth] will recover fine, because we’ve got valleys everyone bounces back, it’ll take some time but eventually everything will be back to normal.”
“I think we will get through it,” says Jones. “I just hope it doesn’t happen year on year.”
