Hurricanes Sandy and Katrina revisited.
BILLIONS of wasted dollars to bail out those irresponsible enough to have property subject to flooding/hurricane events without adequate insurance or no insurance at all or, not enough insurance (No excess flood insurance to cover the gap between FEMA coverage and actual loses - picture those insurance policies for the elderly that are designed to cover most excessive cost over what Medicare covers) to cover the damages these disasters cause and again, a complete lack of accountability... either for those stupid enough to go without flood insurance in a flood zone, or for those stupid enough to hand over the cash.
Hurricane Sandy... Hurricane Katrina... and now, this hurricane... and their failure to learn from past mistakes will have zero impact on their knee-jerk reactions to this disaster.
But the Federal government's "liability" is limited to Federal infrastructure and facilities.
In early December of 2015, the lower part of our house was flooded when the outdoor drainage system was overwhelmed and backed up into the lower part of our split level. Around 3 hours of high winds blew yards of pine needles off our evergreen trees, and they all congregated at the one spot that would cause such a backup. That was followed by a massive rain dump, monsoon-like, that lasted an hour. Damage would have been much worse had I not been in my home office... and walked downstairs during the worst of it to discover that the carpet in the hallway below me had changed color from the water pouring in.
I ran outside and cleared the blockage in less than a minute... but by then, it was too late as the water had poured down our driveway (uphill to downhill), and then backed up to go inside the vents of the house and our dryer.
The damage was $24,000 for this freak situation, and we weren't insured for any of it. It took weeks to repair and only the quick thinking of my wife in getting a commercial disaster firm in here kept the damage from being worse.
Of course, we aren't in a flood zone... and in fact, sit on top of a hill at about the 500 foot level.
But nobody gave us a thing. No checks. No emergency housing. No nothing.
We sucked it up and we paid for it.
And while the disaster of Texas and Louisiana is magnitudes worse, the principle is the same.
Like us, those suffering the loss or damage of their houses due to flooding after making the decision to either not buy any, or not buy enough flood insurance SHOULD be accountable for that decision.
As taxpayers, we should not.
BILLIONS of wasted dollars to bail out those irresponsible enough to have property subject to flooding/hurricane events without adequate insurance or no insurance at all or, not enough insurance (No excess flood insurance to cover the gap between FEMA coverage and actual loses - picture those insurance policies for the elderly that are designed to cover most excessive cost over what Medicare covers) to cover the damages these disasters cause and again, a complete lack of accountability... either for those stupid enough to go without flood insurance in a flood zone, or for those stupid enough to hand over the cash.
Hurricane Sandy... Hurricane Katrina... and now, this hurricane... and their failure to learn from past mistakes will have zero impact on their knee-jerk reactions to this disaster.
But the Federal government's "liability" is limited to Federal infrastructure and facilities.
In early December of 2015, the lower part of our house was flooded when the outdoor drainage system was overwhelmed and backed up into the lower part of our split level. Around 3 hours of high winds blew yards of pine needles off our evergreen trees, and they all congregated at the one spot that would cause such a backup. That was followed by a massive rain dump, monsoon-like, that lasted an hour. Damage would have been much worse had I not been in my home office... and walked downstairs during the worst of it to discover that the carpet in the hallway below me had changed color from the water pouring in.
I ran outside and cleared the blockage in less than a minute... but by then, it was too late as the water had poured down our driveway (uphill to downhill), and then backed up to go inside the vents of the house and our dryer.
The damage was $24,000 for this freak situation, and we weren't insured for any of it. It took weeks to repair and only the quick thinking of my wife in getting a commercial disaster firm in here kept the damage from being worse.
Of course, we aren't in a flood zone... and in fact, sit on top of a hill at about the 500 foot level.
But nobody gave us a thing. No checks. No emergency housing. No nothing.
We sucked it up and we paid for it.
And while the disaster of Texas and Louisiana is magnitudes worse, the principle is the same.
Like us, those suffering the loss or damage of their houses due to flooding after making the decision to either not buy any, or not buy enough flood insurance SHOULD be accountable for that decision.
As taxpayers, we should not.
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