Not usually a fan of digging up a dead thread, but was wondering how things are going? Obviously it's not in the news any more, but I was wondering if shit's getting any better, back to normal, still have major issues, any surprises you didn't expect? It'd be interesting to get a bit of an update from you guys.
it's terrible. none of the pizza shops near me have reopened - so if I want pizza delivered it's like a 2 and a half hour wait minimum. Seriously though, most essential services are back - some of them are a bit half arsed, but all the must have stuff is there. It's just the convenient stuff now like local stores and disabled access to local transport that's a problem (there is disabled access, but if you're in a wheel chair it now takes half an hour longer to get on the train unless there are some nice people to help you past the stairs - people are being pretty cool about helping out - but if you don't want the half dozen guys standing at the station entrance to help lift you over the stairs in case they drop your ass... it's kind of a pain). The drama now is around shit like governance going forward (should we bump taxes for a year or just cap foreign aid at it's current level to pay for the cleanup, if we bump taxes is it reasonable to say half a percent for poor people and a full percent for the better off, should the drought stricken region have released more water from the dam in the 6 month leading up to the floods, despite being drought stricken, and having no evidence of any kind that a once in a generation flood was imminent. Etc. There is an amusing pandemic of lift and escalator fuck ups though. All the repair people are doing flood relief work - so the standard maintenance isn't being done, and lots of stuff was damaged by flooding as remains offline. hence the disabled access shit for local train stations. But even places that weren't flooded are getting un managable breakdowns - people are having to actually walk between floors - it's terrible.
All the above, and there's more storms forecast for this afternoon. Nothing major like before, but possibility of hail and other little annoyances that can be a pain when things are in a state of repair. And a few of the insurance companies are dragging the chain on assessing claims, which is causing some rather heated situations.