Just thought i'd add my views being a gloucester resident. Luckily i missed the worst of the flash flooding being out of town fri-sun, but i did have a mad 'fill every container with water' period on sunday evening seeing as i wasn't sure when the taps would dry up, lucky i did really as nothing came out of them on monday morning.
On arrival at work for the newly privatised city council streetcare dept i found my day mostly occupied with sand and water. First job of day was taking our bowsers normally used for watering floral displays down to stroud to be filled up for us to use for sanitary purposes on the depot, then it was down to the sandbagging, both filling and distribution, the area in which we were handing them out were starting to get the siege mentality and every truckful we sent there were mobbed straight away. I also took the last load of bags to the quay to shore up the wall there, i did spot some of my bags on bbc 6 'o' clock news last night, when i got back to the depot an artic full of bottled water was being unloaded swiftly followed by another, so from then until 8.30pm i shuttled between depot and various supermarkets with a pallet at a time (Transits won't quite handle 2).
From then on our depot has been a collection point for bottled water for care homes, people with disabilities, carers etc. I think over the last 5 days I've handled countless thousands of litres of water and god knows how many sandbags and considering i normally drive up and down parks and playing fields mowing them in my tractor, i've not had that much exercise in a long time.
Being a single man with no dependents I haven't struggled too much with the water shortages, and i think living in a tent for 7 summers when i was an outdoor instructor helped me somewhat, but i can feel for the larger households with young kids and the old and infirm. There are some very big-hearted volunteers in the city at the moment giving up their time and vehicles etc. collecting and distributing water to those not able to get out and brave the sometimes violent crowds at the supermarkets for free water. As much as i appreciate the efforts of the armed forces and emergency services there are a lot of people going unrecognised through this crisis.
Blimey, i didn't half go on then, apologies for boring anyone.
