h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, factories using significant water (like 3000 tons/day) are going to be screwed until the supply is restored - no vehicle-moved water is likely to be of use.
Pubs being closed is hardly a state-of-emergency situation.

Luckily, the factory is not supplied from the Myth pumping station - it's also a liquid foods factory which requries the water for cleaning.

Hopefully, most other factories would not need so much water as that.



Unless, they go out of business especially for the people who may lose their jobs.

A pub that goes out of business because of a couple of weeks of enforced closure must have been limping pretty close to the edge.
Straws make indeed break camels' backs, but usually only on dangerously overloaded camels, most of whom would have been looking at spinal failure pretty soon.

To a large extent, the loss of one local service business is the gain of another, unless customers move away from patronising that kind of service in the long term.

The businesses which are actually flooded, and out of action for months are in a much worse position, but for them the lack of water isn't an issue.

Very nice to know that you don't give a damn about peoples lives being potentially turned upside down and ruined through the loss of their job.

Wouldn't people have insurance for this sort of thing, providing they aren't in an area that, say, routinely floods every year? Also, there may be some government aid programmes they could apply to for financial help.

Btw, in my last post I wasn't comparing droughts to floods, just pointing out the difference with people who have to deal with water restrictions more often. As this is a rare occurrence in the UK the 'pond life' phenomenon would probably be more likely to happen.


az

It's all the fault of the ducks

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/war/uk-flood-defences-'sabotaged-by-ducks'-20070722298/

Living in a fellow county not far from the Gloucester area I can see your side very clearly novosibirsk. There will always be some that stand out from the crowd. Luckily I live on a hill that hasn't been affected so am not too involved. Mind you my work colleagues are. I question how I can help these people. I don't work in the trade.

Hi novosibirsk

>>And yes, there were vandals during WW2. It was not unknown for bombed night clubs to be visited by the police after a raid only to find that ladies who had been killed had had their fingers cut off to get their rings,<<

Those people do sound like the lowest of the low-life but they're slightly different from the people I was puzzling about. It's the mindless sort of vandalism that doesn't profit the vandal (perhaps 'vandal' is the wrong word since the original vandals probably did profit from their destructive behaviour) that causes the old brow to furrow. Cutting off a dead person's finger to get a gold ring is grisly and despicable - but not unprofitable. Damaging bowsers, polluting them or just opening the taps to let all the water run out just seems inexplicable. What could possibly be the motive. They see their family and neighbours in dire straits, flooded out with filthy water, their homes and furniture ruined, no reliable access to clean water - and what is the reaction of these peculiar people? To waste or poison the small and inadequate water supply laid on by Severn Trent. Damn strange!

Luckily I too live on higher ground but have been affected by power cuts and water shortages but not nearly as bad as other poor souls.

Don't knock all 4x4 drivers ... I am one and have been going the rounds of the issuing points collecting the rationed packs for myself and others who have no transport.

Agreed some are profiteering and the law should stamp down on them mercilessly but there are others who do care and may appear to be hoarders but are only trying to do their bit.

It's difficult ... its not fair keeping tabs on people.

I was in Warwick this weekend and although my only experience of the flloods is that the jousting show at the castle was cancelled due to a waterlogged field I did get to hear the a cleric going on about it all on the local radio station.

What a parochial divvot the bloke was.

He questioned the thoughtless vandals who were disrupting relief efforts. Well fair enough but given the chance to get on the radio and talk about people mindlessly screwing things up for themselves and others he didint think to chastise the people who were respobsible for the flooding. He talked about people who didnt care about their communities and said how he could not comprehend the mindset of people who would do things that would have a negative impact on others.

I was amazed as always that people who are allegedly empathic and trained to understand people cant make the tiny mental leap it takes in these sorts of situation. Though the profiteers, looters and vandals might look more craven and juvenile than the people who buy products made in sweatshops or those who drive 4x4s when they have no real need for such vehicles they are not really that different.

Just because in the later cases we call one set of circumstances market forces or following trends, what drives peoples' behaviour when you strip back the motives is just the everyday selfishness and greed that people show in unusual circumstances. The midlessness only seems so apparent because they are unusual the actions only look so monstorous and wasteful because they are so out of the ordinary.

In the grand scheme of things smashed bowsers are tiny problem compared tot he growing deserts and shrinnking ice caps. I doubt anyone will die for want of clean drinking water in the flood affected areas of the UK yet it is a daily occurance in other places.

So to answer the clerics pondering I say this the nasty thoughtless, slfish and monsterous actions he's seen are just the ones he sees everyday.

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