Laxey flooding

[GD4ELI]

8 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Average to sort out flood damage is £30k per house according to RICS.

ETA: based on 3--bedroom.properties.

But that's what insurance is for, and I'm sure claims will be made against DOI anyway.

[ecobob]

3 hours ago, Manx Bean said:

Well, this puts a new complexion onto how our lot think, or don't. Here we have the Fat Controller claiming that £500 is the most they could justify. He then went on to suggest there were approximately 15 properties affected - so a bill of £7,500 assuring it is 15 and all of them claim. £7,500 is all they can justify? Really? Well, maybe an MHK reading this would like to tell us how much they "justify" on the Tynwald Banquet every year? How much they "justify" on accommodating, wining, dining and entertaining the visiting Tynwald Guests for Tynwald Week each year? Maybe they would like to justify Isle of Man Civil Servants spending nights in Douglas Hotels at the Taxpayers expense because apparently they cannot be expected to have to drive home after entertaining said guests? 

And these poor folk in Laxey have had their homes ruined and you can only justify £500 and a lot of pathetic excuses? Beneath pathetic.

https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/flood-payment-of-500-as-much-as-government-could-justify/

 

*applauds*

[ecobob]

2 hours ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Average to sort out flood damage is £30k per house according to RICS.

ETA: based on 3--bedroom.properties.

The figures being bandied about from loss adjusters are more like 100k per property. Some were completely contaminated by sewage and even the upstairs contents have had to be destroyed. 

[ecobob]

1 hour ago, GD4ELI said:

But that's what insurance is for, and I'm sure claims will be made against DOI anyway.

Indeed they will. And the government know it. Why else would they have planned, organised and begun remedial works in less than a week? Works that were recommended after the 2015 floods? 

They’ve been caught with their pants down and the world has watched  it happen. Now they’re  trying to win hearts and minds with a £500 payoff and a programme of works, visits by the CM and a public meeting. 

All to take the heat off one thing. 

That contractors, employed by IOM government left a 3 metre breach in the flood defences at its lowest point, open and unprotected the night before a yellow weather warning was issued. And, that they left their machinery in the river in such a place that created a dam forcing water through the breach, flooding properties that had never before been flooded  

This was not a flood. This was incompetence. The residents know it, the government knows it and the insurers and loss adjusters know it. 

[ecobob]

2 hours ago, WTF said:

And still an insult in real terms

People are displaced. They have lost everything. Some are living in a hotel room and having to pay to eat out every day. The allowance given by the insurers is £10 per person per day. They have had to buy clothes, toiletries and they are using extra fuel in their vehicles to travel back and forth from their temporary accommodation to check on their properties and to meet with contractors, loss adjusters etc. Their homes are filled with dehumidifiers and air blowers. High energy appliances plugged into home owners electricity supplies. Some may be compensated for energy bills in the future, some not but for now they are having to pay the additional costs. 

They are already hugely out of pocket. £500 will help of course but it’s nowhere near enough and it’s nowhere near what the government is capable and should be offering right now. 

Edited October 15, 2019 by ecobob
Spelling

[Max Power]

40 minutes ago, Grounds Keeper Willy said:

£500 wouldn’t even get your carpets cleaned. 

That's just a sign of how out of touch with reality our government is. 

[Andy Onchan]

1 hour ago, Max Power said:

That's just a sign of how out of touch with reality our government is. 

+1

And not just on this issue either.

[WTF]

On 10/12/2019 at 4:19 AM, TheDruid-3X3 said:

It is an Act of Nature.  It is therefor Not Their Fault.

Diggers blocking rivers isn't anything to do with nature.

[Roger Mexico]

The Manx Radio interview is classic Howard Quayle in managing to make even giving out money to the needy look bad.  It's also noticeable just how slow they have been about this 'emergency' - the flooding was two weeks ago but the announcement was only on Friday - ten days later.  And to get this miserly payment you need to download and print off a form and fill it in and take it to Treasury, when they will eventually send you a cheque, providing you fulfil the long list of conditions they have attached to the form.

Given that (according to Quayle) there are only about 15 households affected, you would have thought they could have sent someone up straight away to get things done as quickly as possible and it would have been a good excuse to get some feedback on people's needs and situations.  Instead a whole unfriendly bureaucracy has to be erected and everything slowed down as much as possible.

The way the residents of Laxey have been treated makes an interesting contrast to another weather-related 'disaster' almost exactly a year previously.  Then the feeling that it had been a little dry that summer and some farmers' profits might be affected was enough for Tynwald to splash the cash with great enthusiasm (about £1.2 million).  Though even some actual farmers couldn't see the need for it.  But presumably some wealthy landowner in receipt of countryside payments had complained that they might have to pay a bit more to feed their horse, so of course the money was available for the truly needy in our society.

[hissingsid]

It just goes on and on, we are a two tier society and the top tier treats the rest of us like dirt.   What we think does not matter, what we say is ignored.  We should not need food banks look at the way we used to tell tales about soup kitchens and shake our heads but food banks are not much better.   Meals on Wheels was much more than supplying food and that has gone.  Our beautiful countryside is getting concreted over, and now the rateable value system is getting meddled with and whatever way it goes it will cost more.  Incompetence in government gets rewarded,after lessons are learned.   The Laxey flooding is a scandal if the river had been kept clear and the wall left intact there would not have been so much damage if any.   How I wish an election was coming up.  I just get depressed thinking about the unfairness of it all.

[Derek Flint]

1 hour ago, hissingsid said:

It just goes on and on, we are a two tier society and the top tier treats the rest of us like dirt.   What we think does not matter, what we say is ignored.  We should not need food banks look at the way we used to tell tales about soup kitchens and shake our heads but food banks are not much better.   Meals on Wheels was much more than supplying food and that has gone.  Our beautiful countryside is getting concreted over, and now the rateable value system is getting meddled with and whatever way it goes it will cost more.  Incompetence in government gets rewarded,after lessons are learned.   The Laxey flooding is a scandal if the river had been kept clear and the wall left intact there would not have been so much damage if any.   How I wish an election was coming up.  I just get depressed thinking about the unfairness of it all.

An election will make no difference. Many of the same will be re-elected, and any new ones with force and vision will be sidelined. 

This is likely as good as it gets I am afraid.

[Numbnuts]

2 hours ago, WTF said:

Diggers blocking rivers isn't anything to do with nature.

Neither is big holes made.  Or failing to keep the rivers clea from branches etc as promised in 2015

[thesultanofsheight]

10 hours ago, Derek Flint said:

5 grand would have been better

What happened to Laxey Live Aid which was going to raise millions for these people? 

[Uhtred]

3 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

The Manx Radio interview is classic Howard Quayle in managing to make even giving out money to the needy look bad.  It's also noticeable just how slow they have been about this 'emergency' - the flooding was two weeks ago but the announcement was only on Friday - ten days later.  And to get this miserly payment you need to download and print off a form and fill it in and take it to Treasury, when they will eventually send you a cheque, providing you fulfil the long list of conditions they have attached to the form.

Given that (according to Quayle) there are only about 15 households affected, you would have thought they could have sent someone up straight away to get things done as quickly as possible and it would have been a good excuse to get some feedback on people's needs and situations.  Instead a whole unfriendly bureaucracy has to be erected and everything slowed down as much as possible.

The way the residents of Laxey have been treated makes an interesting contrast to another weather-related 'disaster' almost exactly a year previously.  Then the feeling that it had been a little dry that summer and some farmers' profits might be affected was enough for Tynwald to splash the cash with great enthusiasm (about £1.2 million).  Though even some actual farmers couldn't see the need for it.  But presumably some wealthy landowner in receipt of countryside payments had complained that they might have to pay a bit more to feed their horse, so of course the money was available for the truly needy in our society.

Well said. Any normal society, parliamentary assembly, or media, would have relentlessly pursued Quayle over precisely the points you raise. However...

I’ve genuinely reached the point of despair with this government and, probably more so, the failure of Tynwald to hold it to account. But that’s occurred of course because they’re essentially the same thing. The 50% turnover of Keys membership at our last election has, in fact, proved to be a disaster.

[quilp]

Direct action is what's needed before these bunch of piss-takers sit up and listen. Block a few roads, break some glass, turn up the heat. Manxies are, and have been, far too soft on the robber barons who just take the fucking piss...