More proof Hurricane Michael is the forgotten storm

[divinnole]

The list of the 75 most powerful storms of all times does not even list it, even though it was the most or 2nd most powerful storm to ever make landfall in the US.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/t...all-time/ss-BB1263DY?ocid=spartanntp#image=71

Through church mission work I have worked a lot of relief efforts after hurricanes in the southeast. I have never seen the destruction as extensive as it was after Michael. Yet as limited coverage as any storm has ever generated. No country music stars holding benefit concerts even though the area was very instrumental in kick starting several of their careers and several have homes in the area. No pro athletes showing up to help or making PSA to help out, or pro golfers donating so much for each birdie made.

I know I have beat this drum before but when I see coworkers, friends and family members still struggling to rebuild it gets to you after awhile.

 

[goldmom]

A year ago I drove on I-10 past Tallahassee on my way to visit family in Alabama and I was absolutely amazed at the devastation around the Marianna area. It looked like old photos of the Mt. St. Helens eruption in Washington state, with trees flattened or just stripped bare and all the 6 ft. tall bare trunks with the bark blown off. And the road signs twisted around. This was six months after the storm. I was back that way again in January and it really didn't look much better, although the state did get most of the signs replaced.

 

[dero316]

I agree, doesn't make much sense and heartbreaking to see.

 

[Spearhead04]

Probably time to pickup and move to greener pastures. Easier said than done, I know.

 

[divinnole]

Probably time to pickup and move to greener pastures. Easier said than done, I know.

I was lucky, I live in the NW corner of Jackson Co and we were on the west side of the eye by about 25miles. We had winds in the 115-120 range. We were spared of devastation that started about 10 miles east of us and ran about 50 miles wide. My kids live in Panama City with my son's house suffering heavy damage. My daughter had just sold her house which was destroyed in the storm. She was out of town when Michael hit. For me even with as much storm damage I have seen in my life, watching friends, co workers, family members and others from the area deal with the mess, cleanup and later the red tape and it continues even now, 19 months after the storm has been hard to take.

I spent everyday for 3 weeks (until I returned to work) going from street to street helping folks cut trees off of homes and out of road ways. The look of hopelessness on the faces was hard to take each day. For many I have seen the hopelessness turn to anger from dealing with insurance companies playing games with policies. My son is a good example of what many has and is still dealing with. His 225K house should have been totaled but the insurance company started with an offer for 30K. They kept on slowly upping it until out of frustration he settled 165K, nearly a year later . HIs repairs cost over 225K. He had full replacement value on his policy. I would never tell him this but his house is not right. Doors don't shut right, his foundation has a 1" wide crack running the width of his slab. Many other issues are apparent with the house also.

My son and DIL were lucky, her father was able to help them get their build done, but there are so many others who do not have those resources available to them. Numerous homes still have blue tarps on the roofs, others are waiting to be demo-ed. Many damaged homes are sitting vacate, where frustrated owners finally gave up and have left the area.

Like I said seeing the storm all but forgotten outside of the 5 counties deeply affected by Michael has been frustrating. Yet when Dorian hit the Bahama, which is not even a terroritory of the US had pro golfers, music stars, politicians, Hollywood stars and other elitist fall all over themselves to help the Bahamas. Hell the Palosi lead democrats held up a relief bill for Michael and Harvey victims because they wanted an extra couple of billion added to it for Puerto Rica for further hurricane recovery even though we had already sent billions there. When some money did make it's way here it was in the form of SBA loans and not grants which always seem to be available for disaster victims.

 

[Deerfuel2]

I was lucky, I live in the NW corner of Jackson Co and we were on the west side of the eye by about 25miles. We had winds in the 115-120 range. We were spared of devastation that started about 10 miles east of us and ran about 50 miles wide. My kids live in Panama City with my son's house suffering heavy damage. My daughter had just sold her house which was destroyed in the storm. She was out of town when Michael hit. For me even with as much storm damage I have seen in my life, watching friends, co workers, family members and others from the area deal with the mess, cleanup and later the red tape and it continues even now, 19 months after the storm has been hard to take.

I spent everyday for 3 weeks (until I returned to work) going from street to street helping folks cut trees off of homes and out of road ways. The look of hopelessness on the faces was hard to take each day. For many I have seen the hopelessness turn to anger from dealing with insurance companies playing games with policies. My son is a good example of what many has and is still dealing with. His 225K house should have been totaled but the insurance company started with an offer for 30K. They kept on slowly upping it until out of frustration he settled 165K, nearly a year later . HIs repairs cost over 225K. He had full replacement value on his policy. I would never tell him this but his house is not right. Doors don't shut right, his foundation has a 1" wide crack running the width of his slab. Many other issues are apparent with the house also.

My son and DIL were lucky, her father was able to help them get their build done, but there are so many others who do not have those resources available to them. Numerous homes still have blue tarps on the roofs, others are waiting to be demo-ed. Many damaged homes are sitting vacate, where frustrated owners finally gave up and have left the area.

Like I said seeing the storm all but forgotten outside of the 5 counties deeply affected by Michael has been frustrating. Yet when Dorian hit the Bahama, which is not even a terroritory of the US had pro golfers, music stars, politicians, Hollywood stars and other elitist fall all over themselves to help the Bahamas. Hell the Palosi lead democrats held up a relief bill for Michael and Harvey victims because they wanted an extra couple of billion added to it for Puerto Rica for further hurricane recovery even though we had already sent billions there. When some money did make it's way here it was in the form of SBA loans and not grants which always seem to be available for disaster victims.

My first offer from my homeowner's insurance, was $15k. I ended up demoing my house. Still haven't settled, but I turned it over to a lawyer. My place was at Mexico Beach. It was a second home, so I had more leeway with being able to play the long game with the insurance company.

 

[mjpwooo]

I work for a life insurance company (financial advisor(). So property & casualty is different...but still in the insurance industry.

What you folks are dealing with is why people hate, absolutely hate, all insurance companies.

My recommendation...post the names of the companies so that folks like me will be sure to NOT use them for my policies in the future.

Whoever is using an attorney, @Deerfuel2 , I hope you get 100X the value of your home in the form of a settlement.

 

[Bartdog]

I was lucky, I live in the NW corner of Jackson Co and we were on the west side of the eye by about 25miles. We had winds in the 115-120 range. We were spared of devastation that started about 10 miles east of us and ran about 50 miles wide. My kids live in Panama City with my son's house suffering heavy damage. My daughter had just sold her house which was destroyed in the storm. She was out of town when Michael hit. For me even with as much storm damage I have seen in my life, watching friends, co workers, family members and others from the area deal with the mess, cleanup and later the red tape and it continues even now, 19 months after the storm has been hard to take.

I spent everyday for 3 weeks (until I returned to work) going from street to street helping folks cut trees off of homes and out of road ways. The look of hopelessness on the faces was hard to take each day. For many I have seen the hopelessness turn to anger from dealing with insurance companies playing games with policies. My son is a good example of what many has and is still dealing with. His 225K house should have been totaled but the insurance company started with an offer for 30K. They kept on slowly upping it until out of frustration he settled 165K, nearly a year later . HIs repairs cost over 225K. He had full replacement value on his policy. I would never tell him this but his house is not right. Doors don't shut right, his foundation has a 1" wide crack running the width of his slab. Many other issues are apparent with the house also.

My son and DIL were lucky, her father was able to help them get their build done, but there are so many others who do not have those resources available to them. Numerous homes still have blue tarps on the roofs, others are waiting to be demo-ed. Many damaged homes are sitting vacate, where frustrated owners finally gave up and have left the area.

Like I said seeing the storm all but forgotten outside of the 5 counties deeply affected by Michael has been frustrating. Yet when Dorian hit the Bahama, which is not even a terroritory of the US had pro golfers, music stars, politicians, Hollywood stars and other elitist fall all over themselves to help the Bahamas. Hell the Palosi lead democrats held up a relief bill for Michael and Harvey victims because they wanted an extra couple of billion added to it for Puerto Rica for further hurricane recovery even though we had already sent billions there. When some money did make it's way here it was in the form of SBA loans and not grants which always seem to be available for disaster victims.

Our place (where my dad used to live) in Bascom was right in the eye. Fortunately, we just had to replace siding, soffit, some plaster, and flooring. I can't say enough good things about Security First insurance. They were very quick getting someone out to assess the damage, very fast with payment and then very fast and agreeable when we found more damage and asked for more money. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get coverage for any of the fencing, etc and we're getting the fences re-built as I type this. We actually spent our flooring money on tree clearing to make way for the new fences. No one lives in the house, but we're leasing the pastures....

 

[divinnole]

Our place (where my dad used to live) in Bascom was right in the eye. Fortunately, we just had to replace siding, soffit, some plaster, and flooring. I can't say enough good things about Security First insurance. They were very quick getting someone out to assess the damage, very fast with payment and then very fast and agreeable when we found more damage and asked for more money. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get coverage for any of the fencing, etc and we're getting the fences re-built as I type this. We actually spent our flooring money on tree clearing to make way for the new fences. No one lives in the house, but we're leasing the pastures....

Bart it makes no sense how some folks insurance claims were filled with the company going way above what the homeowner was expecting and others are still haggling. My assistant principle also has security first and she can still see the moon at night through the exposed trusses in her house. My brother has State Farm and they have been a nightmare for him, yet his next door neighbor who also has SF got a 45K check in less than a week to replace his roof on a 2500 sq ft house. It cost him 30k for a new metal roof. He also received several other checks for other damage which far exceeded what he had in repairs. My brother has a 1900 sq ft home in Altha, he lost the roof including having some trusses destroyed, all the ceiling sheet rock had to be remove as some of it fell in during the storm, lots of other interior damage, lost a nice 24X20 storage building, all the windows had to be replaced. His first offer was less than 20K, which was less than the cost of the roof. He finally received their "last offer" of 60k 18 months after the storm. Needless to say an attorney is handling it now.

 

[goldmom]

Don't they bring in adjusters from all over the country with these storms that produce a lot of claims? I seem to recall that from my HOA days.
Experience, expertise, and degree of training plus an understanding of local building costs vary between the adjusters.
And anyone who thinks insurance companies are your friend is naive. It's hardball from the first pitch.

 

[divinnole]

Don't they bring in adjusters from all over the country with these storms that produce a lot of claims? I seem to recall that from my HOA days.
Experience, expertise, and degree of training plus an understanding of local building costs vary between the adjusters.
And anyone who thinks insurance companies are your friend is naive. It's hardball from the first pitch.[/QUOTE

That is pretty much what happened in my brothers case. He and his neighbor both had a claim adjuster at the same time. His neighbor's adjuster was out of Tallahassee, my brother's adjuster was from Va. The neighbor's adjuster was there 45 minutes, my brother's adjuster spent 6hrs. 6hrs to offer less than 20k for a house that an independent adjuster later listed as being 75% destroyed. For me personally my home has withstood 2 cat 3 storms and (1) cat 2 and have yet to collect a dime from insurance for any damage, but every year I pay a pretty hefty "hurricane recovery" fee on my premiums. In fact 28 years ago when we built our home our insurance premium was less than 400/year. Now it is almost $3000/yr. I have had one claim for lightening hitting my well and had a $800 repair bill. So they have made a lot of $$$ of me. You are right, they are not a friend of customers at all.

 

[Random_John]

Don't they bring in adjusters from all over the country with these storms that produce a lot of claims? I seem to recall that from my HOA days.
Experience, expertise, and degree of training plus an understanding of local building costs vary between the adjusters.
And anyone who thinks insurance companies are your friend is naive. It's hardball from the first pitch.

When I worked for the Department of Financial Services (insurance side) There were a lot of regulations on who could come and work a hurricane. After Andrew there was a lot of fraud. Now, with red tape, getting the people in place takes time. But, the rules may have changed. It has been several years since I worked there.

 

[goldmom]

When I worked in HOA/Condo management, we had hurricane damage in '04 and '05, and then a gap until '15 and '16 that hit us on the ocean.
Since Citizens was at the time the only option for oceanfront we had to deal with them exclusively. I was very surprised at how good their adjusters were - at least in our particular situation. They were actually knowledgeable and were all from Florida. Aside from the huge deductible, the process was pretty fair and realistic.