You have the potential to claim $40,000 from a $115,000 job. But that's a job that you'd have to call in the builders for.
Your house is intact but the damage has taken out the walls and everything in the house up to waist height.
Of course by the time you get back in, the slime has crawled all over the place. Fema is not going to pay for wall units and all sorts, you have seen the news clips.
Take it from there. $40,000 tops, as the cost of living is cheaper over there.
=A340,000 if you live in Great-rip-off Britain. We might adjust that to some extent if a price comparison of materials and maybe tools, calls for it. That's the bill facing the woman we saw on the news over here. (Mind that was 2 years ago.)
You have to start by taking out what is waterlogged and non-salvagable and drying what's left.
FEMA is the agent of last resource for reconstruction if you don't have insurance. There's no "deal" that says they are obliged to rebuild the entire facility to its original condition. After the massive hail/rain/tornadoes here they got people back into minimal, safe habitats, some of which were far better than what the were in originally. Those w/ assets are expected to use them.
In some instances this was temporary trailers, in others some was just a new roof and windows, in other cases the dwelling was condemned as being uninhabitable and not cost-effective to repair.
It all depends on the individual situation but to expect FEMA to be the equivalent of full-coverage insurance is simply unreasonable and not the purpose/function. With the widespread damage at current time, the individual response will undoubtedly have to be spread out some simply for lack of immediate resources to simply cover the absolute bare minimum.
As it happens I was taping a film and the news bulletin was taped with it. I don't really know how to copy from a VCR to my computer and put it online or send it over the net to someone.
It was an ABC bulletin, the BBC runs a half hour or so of a US news channel's bulletinseach night on its News 24 channel. That was the night they paid respects to a recently deceased presenter.
It dealt with the insurance claims that some sufferers are presently taking FEMA to court with some 2 years to the day that the hurricane struck them.
The present head of the agency claims there was no overall insurance but the then head of it says that there was. But do you the richest and most powerful country the planet has ever seen, want people living in trailers when for the same money they could be living in houses?
Now lets get on with it and save the bickering for the Swift Boat rednecks when the electioneering starts again.
In the USA it is not function of gov't to provide the benefits that could be had via private insurance, please refer to Mr. Bozoarth's comments.
FEMA has a specific role & making people whole again is not it
Also I would suggest against depending on the BBC & ABC to provide anything near accurate informattion.
I would suggest The Economist
If an earthquake destroys my home (rather unlikely) I won't be expecting the gov't (ie the US taxpayers) to rebuild it for me.......that's why I have paid for & installed several strengthing schemes and plan to do more.
I have no interest anyway and don't have the bandwidth to download something that size must be anyway...I know FEMA and its charter quite well after having dealt w/ the storms we had here two years ago so I don't need some "do-gooder" trying to make politics out of some individual case(s). That some insurance companies may have tried to limit their exposure is a different conversation entirely.
I'm afraid you don't understand the US system (as many in the US don't either, unfortunately). FEMA is an insurance program so there can be no insurance claims to take to them.
The responsibility in the US is primarily one of the individual to ensure their own economic welfare. That entails the responsibility to have adequate insurance for natural disasters as well as fire and liability. The shortcoming (if there is one) is that there are not requirements that all do so. FEMA is an organization which is Federally funded that provides both immediate and long-term aid in response. For immediate life and safety issues, there is no discernment between the insured and non-insured. After that immediate crisis, long term reconstruction efforts are aided by FEMA but their charter is in essence one of a social program and efforts are limited to those who do not have other resources. This seems only reasonable to me although I would certainly like to see stronger measures to make carrying insurance essentially a universal action.
As for the last claim, it's not possible to get people into permanent dwellings even if it were no more expensive (which it isn't). For the first thing, it takes a significant amount of time to even clear the debris what more build a new structure whereas the trailers are a commodity item that FEMA keeps a significant number of on hand for nearly immediate deployment.
That there are those who try to make more of what FEMA should be in their opinion is another side of typical US politics and various views of what social programs should be government funded, but the fact is that FEMA is an emergency response agency as the name says.
I would suggest you read my post to see where I said that FEMA is an insurance agency and see if you can locate the post where I asked you to stop bickering over the politics.
You start by doing your own demolition... Use chlorox sprays to get rid of the mold etc. repeatedly until its all dry as a bone and ultra clean.
learn to do sheet rock..it has a few tricks but isnt that hard.
You fit new insulation and sheet rock and other damaged materials...you learn those trades yourself..
Then you spend the 40k on appliances, furniture, carpeting and what you can't do yourself.
Phil Scott
You have the potential to claim $40,000 from a $115,000 job. But that's a job that you'd have to call in the builders for.
Your house is intact but the damage has taken out the walls and everything in the house up to waist height.
Of course by the time you get back in, the slime has crawled all over the place. Fema is not going to pay for wall units and all sorts, you have seen the news clips.
Take it from there. $40,000 tops, as the cost of living is cheaper over there.
£40,000 if you live in Great-rip-off Britain. We might adjust that to some extent if a price comparison of materials and maybe tools, calls for it. That's the bill facing the woman we saw on the news over here. (Mind that was 2 years ago.)
I am glad you can smirk. It takes some doing with a trace of humanity these days. I'm not saying you have a trace of humanity of course. Just that I am glad you are not dead.
I should have posted this idea as two separate posts to UK.diy and this group. The presence of so many experts has put the amateurs off and the experts are most likely themselves stumped at where to start to offer the best advice.
It's traditional to have a thread on the subject of caustic soda every few weeks on UK.diy, so perhaps I should kick it off on there again with a jab at that?
It is actually very difficult to look around your home and try to imagine where you might start; coming home exhausted and frightened and finding a totally unclimbable obstacle and no helping hand -as everyone else in the community is in the same boat and no government handouts.
We have had exactly the same visitation here in the UK recently.
Here there are local and national agencies that are responsible for housing and health of those caught in a calalmity like a tornado. It went badly wrong in the heart of ye olde Ynglande. I gather in the US neighbours would have chipped in to get those hurt helped out immediately.
That system can't possibly work in the Louisiana disaster.
Not on that scale.
And doesn't happen in the UK these days. I am just old enough to remember a time it once did. In a small way at least.
Assuming there is access to cleaning equiptment and other stuff when a state is washed out. (I remember trying to buy a decent hammer following the Abergele Flood about 10 years or so back. Every DIY shop, every builder's yard, every market stall was cleaned of hand tools. There was such a shortage of building materials too. It was awesome.
Unless you have had experience of a disaster you REALLY can't comprehend it. Honest. Imagine coming accross Newton's work in Latin. You wouldn't know where to start.)
Anyway assuming all that, the first thing you would neeed to do is clean out and clear up, obviously.
Thanks for the start to this thread. I was beginning to think the worst of you lot here.
| | Dave Fawthrop wrote: | | | | I am glad you can smirk. It takes some doing with a trace of humanity | these days. I'm not saying you have a trace of humanity of course. Just | that I am glad you are not dead. | | I am not lying and I am not smirking. | | Now f*ck off. Go and waste it elsewhere.
Merely suggesting that anyone living on a flood plain should move to somewhere higher.
.... or accept the risk. That's a no brainer. Now. Given the fact that most of the flooded homes in MS that didn't have flood insurance were built well above any official flood zones, what suggestion do you have for them?
Buy some wellies Buy a snorkel and mask Drown Move more whites into the areas concerned - then someone in authority might give a f*ck Revise the official flood zone to include the homes that flooded Stop driving round in huge f*cking SUV's and learn to use your legs Stop eating half a cow and fries for breakfast lunch and dinner and less water might be displaced when some lard ass goes for a swim Spend the UN recommended proportion of GDP on foreign aid rather than spending it on waging wars all over the f*cking place
Believe saw what you're talking about on CNN. Basically, its about FEMA provided flood insurance and a few people who wouldn't accept FEMA's money as it was inadequate per their perceptions. They are suing. Some recent online FEMA advertisements for flood insurance also seem to indicate alot more than what they actually provide per the same CNN broadcast. The news broadcast seems to insinuate false advertising statements.
In my opinion, FEMA has no business providing any kind of property insurance. Admittedly, flood insurance is very expensive. Its required by many mortgage companies financing housing within a flood zone. Other acts of God are relatively inexpensive to insure. Flood insurance is also an option provided by some mortgage companies in a non-flood zone. Flood insurance is always an option to the home owner if he/she is willing to pay for it, or be prepared to take the loss in event of flooding.
In rare occasions, like a hurricane, inland flooding inundates many not normally considered in a flood zone. A few years ago, similar happened in central Texas with a freak, extended, heavy rain period. Many living along rivers and lakes, not "normally" flooded, flooding destroyed or substantially damaged their homes. General consensus was that very few had flood insurance due to the infrequency of such a radical amount of rain in such a short time. Believe they called it a once in 200 year event. That was the reason the mortgage/financing companies did not require flood insurance. Am sure each homeowner, at one time or another, had observed floodwaters previously that came within distance to their homes. And, the thought of flood insurance did cross their minds. But did not follow through as it wasn't required, nor the chance of flooding seemed to indicate that.
The solution seems to be that the mortgage/financing companies need to rethink flooding insurance requirements to cover more rare occasions. This would increase the insurance funding base, and make flood insurance less expensive. FEMA does not have to get involved.
But it is in the disaster business and if the insurance companies go belly up it will be a federal disaster not a state one.
(Remember the season is in full spate and that you only got a brief respite in time for Rita. It will get back to full throttle following the lull of the previous lunar phase. (Just thought I'd throw that in to rattle a few of the losers and dead heads on sci.geo.geology.))
This thread was intended as some sort of support for those who were trying to squeeze every last cent out of what little they have in order to begin living again. But I suppose it might be a cathartic for the blinding frustration at the state of offence that is the US Federal Aid Programme under the drunk slackers in charge.
It is an order of magnitude greater than fire. A fire might destroy a town but the foundations could be reusable and the clearing up would be minimal with nothing septic once the air cleared.
With a flood, there may be uplift. There will certainly be massive subsidence affecting not only housing but road and rail infrastructures with everything from sheds to road bridges moving on their foundations.
The problem being that as with FEMA reneging, the insurance will settle every claim asap to avoid the follow on when the owners realise they were duped into signing off on the claim. Some totally ingenuous souls settled no doubt for a mere clean out with disinfectant and a prssure wash.
And that should be the fault of the government if it cares for its citizens. There should be a mandatory tax to cover such possibilities. You will see that however badly it catered for the victims, there will be a back dated tax of some sort raised to cover events.
(And pay for more torture chambers in Cuba.)
I was merely pointing out that it "had" become involved. FEMA had got out of hand obviously and by the look of recent events all to no avail for anyone at the sharp end.
I don't think I shall bother writing a transcript of the broadcast as I am sure that the news will carry it all, all over again a few times before the debacle is over.
In the meantime, here is when to expect to have the next lull:
November the 9th on. But here again it will only be for a week or so. By then the focus may well have moved out to Australasia. Don't count on it. Get your arses covered.
Goodness knows the Aussies can use the wet, if only to protect them from the British tour but will it be at all possible in summer?
Rita could have bitten badly if it had not been for the spell starting around the 18th and ending on the 25th. Let's hope there is time to go shopping for insurance.
Again, you're unaware of the way things are in the US--
flood insurance available in the US is subsidized by the US Federal Government--there is no fully private underwriter who will write such and therefore, the Federal government stepped in to provide it.
...
Other than you seem to have an agenda from afar, I have no clue what the above is intended to say...
Well, your perception of "freak" and "normally" is, imo, quite skewed as it is w/ most folks who live in such areas. I happen to know that area pretty well as I have family who have been there for something approaching 75 years now...but they know full well that every so often, "stuff happens" and that is one of the "stuffs" that happens down there. Of course, having continued to build major cities and residential areas all up and down the coastal areas simply exacerbates the problem. But, it is neither all that unusual nor rare.
That again is the difference between the US model and yours (or at least your personal model). In the US, it's the individual who is presumed to be primarily responsible for themselves--rightly imo.
As for the last claim, I think you will find that will not happen unless the other side gets more control of the Congress than they presently have. It's the other group that typically is the ones who look to higher taxes and government as the first recourse, not the last as a general philosophy.
Again, there's a major difference in mindset here--personal responsibility , not government.
Correction. All flood insurance is not subsidized by the U.S. government. Flood insurance in the U.S. is ONLY available through the U.S. government. That is not a subsidy. That is an entitlement program that is federally funded through FEMA.
"Dave Fawthrop" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...
some people are dirt poor and need to live near their low rent jobs ... below sea level in the ghetto is cheapest...and all the relatives are there too....so there you have it.
No other choice for most of these people.
If I were living there Id keep a 4x8 x 4" thick sheet of strofoam on hand...two people could paddle out on one of those with the boom box and the dog.
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