{"id":32,"date":"2018-06-20T08:57:05","date_gmt":"2018-06-20T08:57:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/floodarchive\/?page_id=32"},"modified":"2020-03-05T11:43:55","modified_gmt":"2020-03-05T11:43:55","slug":"ben-aged-12","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/floodarchive\/flood-narratives\/ben-aged-12\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben aged 12"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is Ben’s story about what happened to him with some\u00a0key learning points at the end…<\/span><\/h1>\n

Background<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

On the evening of 9th February 2014, after days of persistent rain, seven severe flood warnings (the highest category) were put in place for the River Thames in north Surrey. Residents were evacuated and roads and schools were closed. The Staines area experienced clusters of events involving tidal, river, rainfall and groundwater flooding. These four stories, taken from our \u2018Children, Young People and Flooding: Recovery and Resilience<\/a>\u2019 project, show how flooding can reveal, and even exacerbate, existing social vulnerabilities.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ben, aged 12, lives in a house with his parents, older brother and dog.<\/strong> Although it had been raining steadily for days, Ben said, \u2018Because we were so far away from the river we didn\u2019t think we would get flooded\u2019. But then the flood waters starting rising quickly: \u2018so it rose about eight inches in two hours or something\u2026 It went up really fast\u2019. At this point Ben\u2019s granddad telephoned and Ben said:<\/span><\/p>\n