Floods and asshats

[C. Cecil Ivanish]

Some posts about the "sightseers" during the current hurricane and flooding emergency in the US reminded me of this story.

Several years ago (late 1994), the city of Alessandria in north-western Italy was hit by serious flooding. Nothing compared to what is happening now in Vermont, but it was hard enough on the people living there. Cars washed away, a bunch of (mostly elderly) people trapped in their homes, some of them dead.
The worst damage was, as can be expected, in the area near the Tànaro river, while the city centre was not heavily damaged. Some flooded cellars, quite a lot of discomfort, but no danger and very little disruption to the day-to-day life.

I enrolled with a group of friends to help out in that area for a week. Mostly, we helped run a kitchen that prepared hot food for all those who had lost their homes. Some of us, in turns, helped shoveling mud out of homes. That kind of stuff.
One night, the association that run the kitchen decided to treat us to a "proper dinner" - without having to prepare it. We served the people then they drove us to the city centre for a pizza.
And we were kicked out of a bunch of restaurants because we were "dirty" (we were not, we were all wearing clean clothes and has showered, but I guess that days in the mud show). A woman on the street shouted at us to go away and "don't remind her of the flood". That had happened two weeks before. I do understand that it might have pained her to have seen her city ruined by it, but... well, someone needed to actually do something before it could be buried deep in people's memory.

Of course there also were some amazing people who thanked us, and the pizzeria we ended up in refused to charge us for our (many) drinks.

[MoonCat]

That makes me want to scream. Or weep for humanity, except it makes me wonder if humanity is worth it. Arrgh.

[Seshat]

I enrolled with a group of friends to help out in that area for a week. Mostly, we helped run a kitchen that prepared hot food for all those who had lost their homes. Some of us, in turns, helped shoveling mud out of homes. That kind of stuff.

In the floods we had that covered four states (the whole Murray/Darling river system, which is the major river system for the entire east coast and the south-east ending in Adelaide); we had the usual idiots swimming in floodwaters, tourists and so on.

We also had folks like you, C.

And I deem you and our folks like you and everyone else who helps out in situations like that to be heros.

Thank you. Thank you most sincerely.
And good on that Pizzeria who treated you as you deserve.