In case of floods

[vivacian]

I'm just looking at the dreadful photos of flooding in Doncaster. Can anyone offer advise on what households can do in terms of preparing for possible flooding?

It awful, isn’t it? Flooding completely destroys everything, and is so difficult to prevent or predict.

I would say if you live in a flood risk area it’s about insurance really - making sure you have an ironclad policy; and know who you are with/have copies easily available to start the claims process ASAP. I have done a full inventory of my house for insurance purposes (not in a flood risk area, more for fires etc). Taking photos would be another quick way of doing it, and they could be saved somewhere safe. I can’t remember off the top of my head now what kind of TV I have so wouldn’t expect in an emergency claims situation that I’d remember, either! Having a list ensures I’d be able to claim for everything. I would also make copies of all important documents, and specific to flooding I’d be sorely tempted to keep all documents/grab bag etc upstairs.

I’ve seen a few people on TV with waders etc but I’m not sure if they’re the best idea - they might give you false confidence to go out into the flood waters and then if you’ve misjudged the force you could get swept away. You could always store sandbags somewhere but I don’t think they would have helped with floods of this scale. They may have helped for lower level flooding though?

For prevention - flood risk was a factor in deciding where we live now (We live close to a major river but up a big hill so risk is massively reduced). I appreciate that not everyone has a choice though; and for unusually major flooding like in Yorkshire it’s difficult to predict or plan for.

Maybe store general valuables and important documents upstairs at least. Means less likely to get ruined.

Having a go bag and an idea about where to go and how to get there (e.g a relative) is a good idea. A list of useful phone numbers and insurance reference numbers on paper as well as say, a dropbox copy is a good idea too.

I email myself copies of documents and photos,that way I can log in at the library, say, and access stuff.