It's one thing living in a river bank pub designed for the close proximity of the water table and frequent flooding, I'd imagine solid foundations, stone floors electric wiring and powerpoints kept above mid wall level and fed through ceiling wiring rather than underfloor etc. Where you can see the river and know in advance that the water is rising allowing you to move valuables upstairs and where you have the luxury of higher ground to park the car on and a speedboat to get back to it. Relatively clean river water forming the majority of the flood and subsiding rapidly when the surge passes.Its weird because I never personally see floods as too big a deal. simply because when growing up as a child my parents owned/ran a pub located next to the river Severn, and we got flooded most every year. To me as a child it was a lot of fun - having to get in our little speedboat to take us to where the cars were parked (on the higher ground)... it was easy enough to tell when the water was rising and make preparations. Often made it onto local and even national news - I had my picture in a paper getting the boat to school in the morning
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=lower+lode+inn+flood&espv=2&biw=1920&bih=955&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiSkZrgxIPKAhVFbxQKHQcQAwgQ_AUIBygC#imgrc=vNVmDMk7WDtK2M:
When it's a domestic home mortgaged to the hilt that has no history of flooding, low level wiring, wooden floors, soft furnishings, wallpaper, plasterboard etc and the flooding is caused because some numpty raises or lowers a barrier miles away causing the water level to rise rapidly and flood in not just from the river but from overloaded sewers and fill the house for days or weeks ruining everything while your car drifts away outside and your insurance company, and every other one, refuses to ever insure you again and your home becomes an unsellable millstone around your neck for the rest of your working life then I'd imagine it's less fun even if you are an aquatic mammal.
I've thankfully not personally experienced it, probably because as a Civil Engineer specialised in soil and drainage the quaint home by the river or duck pond has always scared me off knowing the potential risks, but I have seen way more than enough of it in Kent in neighbouring towns with friends and family unlucky enough to have their dream homes turned into nightmares by entirely preventable floods caused by decades of poor planning, underfunding and governmental mismanagement. I've lived and worked in areas with far, far higher rainfall than the UK and having recently returned am horrified at how far things here have slid and how little the Environment Agency and the likes actually do other than panicked knee jerk reactions and PR face saving exercises in the aftermath of every annual flood season.
