“On my way to a million £” How One Young Entrepreneur Is Making Money From The Floods

PRLog (Press Release) – Aug 12, 2007 – A victim himself of the recent floods, Scott Simon 25 from Worcestershire and a group of friends used a rubber inflatable boat to help victims of the floods to safety. During this rescue mission he realised how quickly the flood water came and how unprepared people were. So within 4 weeks of the floods that caused so much havoc, Simon has launched FloodFight selling a revolutionary ‘self-inflating sandbag’.

The self-inflating sandbags require no sand, you just submerge them in water and within 3-5 minutes they expand from 1lb to 34lbs.  The bags work by using recyclable type bags filled with polyacrylate polymer which absorbs the water and protects from flooding up to 2 feet high.

The advantages of these against normal sandbags are that they are extremely light and therefore easy to carry and deploy (these can be deployed in half the time of a sand filled bag – crucial in rising floods), even by the elderly. They don’t take much storage space up and you don’t have to rely on finding and filling with sand. You can even use these bags to soak up any water that has entered the building.

FloodFight (http://www.floodfight.com) has already sold over 100,000 units and currently has a backlog of orders, Simon comments: “We just can’t keep up with the demand, people are now preparing for the ‘next floods’ and we have hardly done any marketing. All marketing was done when the flooding was still going on so word of mouth has quickly spread”.

FloodFight is also now working on two further services that will help people with houses that are at risk of floods, these are a FloodAlert system via email and text message and also a solution for a drinking water reserve that can be stored in people’s homes that won’t get contaminated from flood water. Simon comments: “When we were helping evacuate people during the floods, I noticed 3 issues, sandbags – lack of sand and heavy to deploy, water – even though the bowsers were put out water was still in need and general alert, the floods happened so quickly that people at work were not given the chance to come back and protect their home or remove pets or furniture”


Over 5 million people, in 2 million properties, live in flood risk areas in England and Wales. England has suffered it wettest July on record. It has been stated that the Government cannot guarantee to protect every house from sever floods like this; there just isn't enough money for this and the Government has just asked the EU for £125 million to help with the recent floods.

Simon adds: “It’s a real shame for those people hit by the floods, most people have lived in these areas all of their lives and have never been flooded like this. Unfortunately it won’t be long until a website will appear pointing out which houses are a flood risk and will be very hard to sell, insurance premiums will rise and it will be hard for home owners. Although there is no direct link yet between Global Warming and flooding, one thing is sure that we can expect more of these severe floods. We also in talks with one major insurance company regarding giving bags to their clients in the flood risk areas as this may reduce the number of claims made”.

Notes for Editors
FloodFight is based in Worcestershire and operates nationwide. The company was launched June 2007 by Scott Simon, a 25 year old entrepreneur who was involved in helping those hit by the floods. FloodFight is know developing two further products to bring to market at the end of 2007 including a SMS alert service and a drinking water storage solution for homes. Turnover has already exceeded £400,000

For further information, please contact:

Hannah Paul
Hendrix PR Management
hannah@hendrixmanagement.com
Or
Scott Simon
FloodFight
Mob: 07900 891 426
Email: scott@floodfight.co.uk
http://www.floodfight.com