Emergency or Panic...you decide.

Well, its been a bit of a freaky kinda week all round.
In case you didn't know, this was the week of "The Floods" or to give them their proper title as announced in the papers "The Great Floods" (although I don't know what was so facking great aboout em).
It would probably be wrong of me to belittle the whole thing about the floods, especially as this time, they affected even me. However...It was interesting to see how it was all played out.
You see, there were several points of view that I found you just couldn't ignore, and I might as well start with poor old Joe Sheffield.
Yes...Joe Sheffield was at work and the rain started. By 2pm, the first river burst its banks and flooded a couple of roads. By 2.30pm most of Sheffield did exactly what they always do at times like these and they all decided to get in their cars and block every major road in the city. Once they were happy that they'd turned Sheffield into a very wet car park, they all decided to panic and stay in their cars until their cars were either very flooded or they found somewhere totally stupid to park.
Those poor people. They needed to get home. We all understand that. I mean, it could have been disaster if they couldn't get home in time to see telly now wouldn't it?
You see, the main problem with the roads in this case, was that essentially Sheffield was being cut in half by the flowing torrents and everyone who was on one side needed to get to the other and was prevented from doing so, by A)heaving cascades of murky brown water, and B)lots and lots and LOTS of cars.
The second point that was really obvious that needs to be made was the media.
Needless to say, the media tried holding the hands of the hordes of people as the rivers grew.
I've never really been in a situation like this before, where I’ve been able to see what’s happening and listen to how the media handles it at the same time.
I am making absolutely no comparison here, but the only other time I’ve seen the news unfold minute by minute would be 9/11. This was nothing like that.
Inane drivel about "the horror unfolding" came gushing out of the radio. I should at this point, point out that at one stage, a steel plant less than a mile from my office was on fire. The few people we had seen were running about shouting about the toxic smoke that was billowing forth from its roof. Where this information had come from, I’m not sure. I quickly reminded people that smoke generally by its nature is toxic and as long as they didn't go around gulping down huge gobfuls of the thick black smoke (which was in the sky) they'd probably all live.
By about 8pm most of Sheffield was either flooded, gridlocked or flooded and gridlocked. To add more horror, a power substation had been flooded, taking out a hefty chink of power across Sheffield.
At this point I was one of two people who’d realised the futility of trying to use the roads and was just waiting for the right time to make a break. I knew I was on the wrong side of the river, so it was pointless going anywhere at that point.
The radio squawked about how people were being airlifted from offices down the road from me. Wow. Those people must really have wanted to get home to watch TV. Then I heard the most ridiculous thing on the radio id heard all night.
I think I should say that ordinarily I don't listen to local radio as I really can't stand to hear the people of Sheffield speak. In general (and no offence is meant to any friends or family at this point-although I don't think it’s relevant on the most part) whenever you hear a person from Sheffield on TV or radio, they have a tendency to just sound plain thick.
So this guy comes on the radio staring that him and his colleagues are trapped on the third floor of their office block, no-one can get out and that the situation was now desperate as they had run out of food.
Excuse me at this point, but for fucks sake...It was only about 8pm! I have to assume that they sent the rescue choppers there next before they all gave in to raw basic human behaviour and started trying to eat each other.
It was terrible for all those folks whose homes were flooded and lost a lot of stuff. We do feel bad for them. So how did my ordeal end? Well I’m certainly not making myself out to be any kind of special case here, but I just waited until about 11.30 and then drove home. It took me about 25 minutes.
I think my last words on the subject of the floods will be these...
This is just a bit of rain and yes there was some flooding....god help us when there's a real emergency.