How did people cope with the boscastle flood?

Answer 1

Since August, the focus has been on the clean-up operation in Boscastle. The

initial stages

of the clean-up were to secure buildings damaged by

the flooding

, as these

posed the

most immediate risk to public safety.

Building inspectors

were called into the area

& the

entire centre of the village cordoned off from the public. The entire process

of inspecting

& securing buildings took several days, after which home owners were

allowed to

retrieve any possessions they could

salvage. The

clean-up operation was then allowed to begin in earnest, with the

infrastructural damage

of roads, sewers & electricity, water & gas supplies being repaired. This

allowed the

owners of some of the relatively unaffected houses to return home & begin

replacing furniture

& redecorating, after inspecting the damage done to their property in full.

Buildings nearest the river channel remained deep in deposited silt & debris & were

in some

cases too damaged to salvage. The museum & a shop were

the worst

affected,

the shop

being hit directly by a tree, so demolition was the only option in this

case. The

Environment Agency has had a great deal of input. Firstly, the entire region

was inspected

& the probability of a recurrence calculated. Estimates from various

sources differ

greatly, some predicting a repeat event in 2005 & some not expecting similar

to happen

for another 60-70 years.