dagblog - Comments for ""Be Prepared": the motto of a good scout"

Wow. Now that's a story! So

seashell — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:21:08 +0000

In reply to "Be Prepared": the motto of a good scout

Wow. Now that's a story!

So in the scheme of things, I think you would have been better off with the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) rather than LoL. Which is how I feel health care could work, too.

... (which had been denied by their adjusters as wind damage, although there was a waterline at 8') ...

Reminds me of menopause as a pre-existing condition. What wild imaginations these insurance companies have. :-)

Seashell: Thinking I was

wwstaebler — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 23:40:32 +0000

In reply to "Be Prepared": the motto of a good scout

Seashell: Thinking I was getting the best policy available, I bought a flood policy, not from FEMA, but from Lloyd's of London, with no coverage for contents. I would be embarrassed to tell you what I paid for that policy, thinking it was worth it. I then bought wind and contents insurance in combination from a company (one of many) that declared itself "insolvent" immediately after the hurricane, which automatically triggered a shifting of all its claims into the state pool. The state sent notices right away that "the number of claims in the pool will result in no payment, at all, for personal possessions." Period end.
However, the nicest person I met in the entire process turned out to be the adjuster from the state pool, who turned up one day, unannounced, eleven months later, in July 2005.

He was the wind guy. But he was so angered by the obvious flood damage he saw (which had been denied by their adjusters as wind damage, although there was a waterline at 8') that he not only approved the maximum allowable payout from the pool for wind damage (although nothing for contents) but also personally called the latest adjuster from Lloyd's of London on the spot, informing him that he was on-site and could affirm the flood damages and that they better pay up.
Four months later they paid, though only 70%.
I truly think that all my months of phone calls, emails and documentation would have been for naught if it had not been for that single encounter with a good man who believed in doing the right thing.
I was far luckier than most.

Ooops, that was meant to be a

seashell — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 23:04:55 +0000

In reply to "Be Prepared": the motto of a good scout

Ooops, that was meant to be a reply to Wendy here. Sorry about that!

Wendy - Congress had given

seashell — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 23:02:43 +0000

In reply to "Be Prepared": the motto of a good scout

Wendy - Congress had given FEMA $13 billion for the '04 hurricanes. By August of 2005, only about $6 billion had been spent, so it wasn't lack of funds.

But like the article said:

Now that President Bush has won Florida in his 2004 re-election bid, he may want to draft a letter of appreciation to Michael Brown, chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Seldom has any federal agency had the opportunity to so directly and uniquely alter the course of a presidential election, and seldom has any agency delivered for a president as FEMA did in Florida this fall. [Government Executive, Nov. 3, 2004.]

I truly think the reason the panhandle got skunked is because, compared to south and central Florida, it is so sparsely populated. By keeping the money and FEMA workers south of the Panhandle, many more votes were guaranteed than the few that would be gleaned from your end of the state.

For New Orleans, the population numbers were there, but it is a blue city and poor. No votes or money were going to be given in gratitude to the Republican party, so why bother to get all excited about it in the first place?

For those wondering about flood insurance in the US, would you believe it is offered by the US government through private sector insurance agents? It is much cheaper to insure your house and the contents against flooding than it is to visit a doctor and buy medicine for bronchitis.

So it turns out that the federal government is already in the insurance business. Does that mean we're all socialists now, even though most of us didn't know it? :-)

Good point, TheraP. People

matyra — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:11:27 +0000

In reply to "Be Prepared": the motto of a good scout

Good point, TheraP. People love being near water. It's yielding, and would rather flow around things. But it's also one of the most powerful forces that we regularly deal with.

One thing that will never make sense to me is how people can rebuild after a flood--in exactly the same place. And not just once: Sometimes this happens multiple times. I believe that New Orleans was destroyed 2 or 3 times before it was even part of the U.S. The French kept re-building right in the same place. We humans may not be the smartest, but we certainly can be persistent!

And even more is the way the

matyra — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:02:32 +0000

In reply to "Be Prepared": the motto of a good scout

And even more is the way the Corps has botched where all the sediment goes. In the Mississippi delta all of that dirt shoots straight out into the Gulf. It used to build up the delta every time it flooded and kept up with subsidence. Without the dirt every year, there's only subsidence happening. Combine that with sea level rise and there's a grim story. I hope we can come up with a plan that brings the dirt back to at least some of the delta.

I really hope so, but it only

matyra — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:57:57 +0000

In reply to "Be Prepared": the motto of a good scout

I really hope so, but it only takes one to make a disaster. Let's toast a glass in hopes that there's lots of upper-level shearing winds to keep those monsters weak this year!

Gregor, in 2004/5 I did not

wwstaebler — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:28:02 +0000

In reply to "Be Prepared": the motto of a good scout

Gregor, in 2004/5 I did not think it was an industry conspiracy because: a) my experience in 1989 had given me faith in the industry so I suffered a period of denial; and, b) I had no time to think because I was either making a new claims binder (they were never forwarded from one adjuster to another, as yet another delaying tactic) or, I was on the phone, sending emails and writing letters to try to get my claim paid. Everyone else I knew was doing the same -- each of us, because it involved money, in isolated bubbles of negotiation, and so, for all of us, collectively, the nightmare of across the board insurance malfeasance unfolded in slow motion, one week and month at a time.
It was only after six months, when the local paper and the engineers and other local sources started keeping statistics on who was being paid and who was not that the pervasiveness of the pattern was revealed.
I personally knew only one woman who was paid within that time frame -- an 83 year old widow whose insurance agent had been her college sweetheart. The rest of us did not have such a sweetheart deal.

That is very true, Gregor.

wwstaebler — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:31:21 +0000

In reply to "Be Prepared": the motto of a good scout

That is very true, Gregor. And it's not just the mangroves, it's the messing about with barrier islands (not called barrier for nothing) and tidal wetlands, either by artificial sand reclamation or engineered dredging projects.

Interestingly, my

Cindy Etal — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:08:12 +0000

In reply to "Be Prepared": the motto of a good scout

Interestingly, my neighborhood isn't in an evacuation zone which has made me acutely aware of the topography of the area. It's become a bit of a fascination.

Thanks for sharing the story about your friend. Funny how those close calls can bring people together!