Three words that should fill you with terror – named storm deductible.
Which – most fortunately – we do not have.
You have several thousand dollars just sitting around right? The named storm deductible is a deductible that kicks in during a named storm (like Gustav or Hannah or Ike) and is a percentage of the value of your home. And you get a new named storm deductible for each named storm that year. So theoretically you could spend the value of your home over the course of the year to cover repairs caused by a series of named storms.
Unreal.
In terms of direct damage to Baton Rouge Hurricane Gustav was worse than Hurricanes Katrina or Rita. (Which cause more damage and of course far more deaths. What Baton Rouge experienced then was the influx of evacuees.) Several billion (to the state) in property damage. Up to five billion dollars in lost economic activity. Sixty three out of sixty five parishes lost power. Hundreds of thousands of customers. In Baton Rouge after one week only about half of people had their electricity back. Traffic lights down or not working meant horrific traffic. One day it took one hour to get to the church and one and a half hours to get home – usually a fifteen minute drive. Two weeks later about ten percent of people still do not have power and may not get it for a while.
I have already quoted Red Sick Rant on the difference Governor Bobby Jindal made compared to Katrina and Rita (and the tragic ineffectiveness of Governor Blanco for whom I did vote).
But we still have questions.
- Why is the infrastructure in Louisiana so fragile that a single cat2-3 hurricane can cripple us for several days?
- As in no electricity along with problems getting food and gas for up to a week or more?
- How on earth can people afford to live here in a home if there is this new named storm deductible? I cannot imagine having to come up with several thousand dollars of out-of-pockets expenses for home repair. And for each storm no less. How did the insurance companies get away with this? (Probably a deal cut in order to keep them in the state.)
- Why is FEMA still so amazingly useless?
- And the single most effective disaster relief organizations are religious – often local churches? Southern Baptist chainsaw crew came to out street and boy they got stuff done – for free.
My house did well – probably thanks to a fairly new roof (which we got after Hurricane Rita). Some fence damage front and back. I have now spent $1500 to have a couple trees and branches removed (optional but to prevent future problems). Six days without power. Seven(?) without television/internet. It was hard to get gas and food. Cooked on the gas grill (coffee, eggs, pancakes, you name it). Stressful week although many had it far far worse. Second floor of University Baptist Church was pretty much wrecked – roof damage led to water led to ceiling collapse in many rooms.
What the picture may not adequately convey is just how sopping drenching wet it was for the first couple days. Everything was dripping wet.
I still feel a kind of deep consuming weariness. Tired. Do not feel like doing much.
And we had it easy compared to many whose homes were severely damaged – or just plain destroyed.
