Private needs, public responses: vulnerable people’s flood-disrupted mobility

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of vulnerable people during flood events, impacts of changes in mobility on well-being and the extent to which frontline services, emergency planning officers and other service providers allocate resources for vulnerable members of the community to meet the challenges posed by floods.

Design/methodology/approach

In-depth qualitative interviews carried out with 15 vulnerable residents, seven community representatives and eight service providers.

Findings

Vulnerable people’s well-being was negatively affected by the disruption to travel caused by floods, though support from the community to some extent redressed these negative feelings. Whilst there seems to be a strong response from both the community and the local authorities to the mobility needs of vulnerable people during floods, what seems to be missing is an equal response from the private sector in terms of provision of transport services to access goods such as food and money.

Practical implications

More needs to be done to make sure that communication and support networks are formalised to address the potential unevenness of informal networks. Private companies need to engage more with customers. Improved information and more resilient services such as 4×4 vehicles and doorstep provision of goods and money would directly support vulnerable people who are highly dependent on their services.

Originality/value

This study is the first in the UK to explore and compare the private experiences of vulnerable people with the views of stakeholders who could support them during floods.

Citation

Christie, N., Griffin, L., Chan, N., Twigg, J. and Titheridge, H. (2016), "Private needs, public responses: vulnerable people’s flood-disrupted mobility", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 25 No. 2, pp. 244-260. https://doi.org/10.1108/DPM-11-2015-0254