Post Race!

[Jacob Roman]

Cat 8?? I didn't know it went past 6. What happened to 7?

Here's your Cat 7 cable

Unfortunately Cat 9's don't exist yet. Ironically Cats have 9 lives

[dday9]

The parish president said not to come tomorrow, that at day break they’ll assess which roads are accessible. The thing of it is, is that my back windows blew out and I need to board them up so that the mold don’t set.

I’m just so stressed. I’m sorry if this is coming across as word vomit but I need somewhere to vent because I don’t want to stress out the wife, me.

[wes4dbt]

Sorry for the damage. It looks repairable. Was watching a lot of video from Houma, knew you live in that area, felt bad for you. That area took a terrible beating for hours. Good luck tomorrow.

[Niya]

This is the front of my house right now.

Good lord. I hope you and your family are alright.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Here's your Cat 7 cable

Unfortunately Cat 9's don't exist yet. Ironically Cats have 9 lives

You're late. I already made that joke...in a more subtle fashion.

[Shaggy Hiker]

That doesn't look too bad, really. It would be no problem repairing the roof...except that everybody else will have also had damage, so finding a roofer will be brutal.

The real question will be water damage inside. I had forgotten about mold. It's not much of an issue up here, but down there...it's hard to dry anything out.

[dday9]

They have state troopers on the highways not allowing people in. I'm not able to make it to my house.

Apparently the natural gas facility down the bayou had a leak and so they had to cut the gas. Unfortunately, this means that people who have natural gas generators and stayed can't use them. My neighbor is one of those people, she's 85 and on oxygen.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I moved to the Florida Keys only a week or two after hurricane Andrew. The high speed lane of he interstate was reserved for emergency vehicles only. For months afterwards, large piles of debris began forming in rows, where it was being dumped as neighborhoods were cleaned. What it really showed was how poorly the houses had been built. In your case, it looks like you house was pretty solid. Protecting an asphalt shingle roof from those winds is probably asking a bit much. Perhaps there's a better roofing option that you could look into while you wait? I don't know of one, but there might be one.

[Delaney]

[Niya]

lmao :d

[Shaggy Hiker]

I went looking for pythons on a date, one time. That was quite a date. We didn't find a python, but we did find a fish crossing a road, and a really pissed off cottonmouth.

[Delaney]

Is that you on the left

[dday9]

We finally heard from my mother-in-law. Her and her parents are safe.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Is that you on the left

No, I think that picture was taking in western Washington, where salmon often cross the road in floods, as shown there. In my case, there was no water on the road...just a fish walking across it.

[boops boops]

No, I think that picture was taking in western Washington, where salmon often cross the road in floods, as shown there. In my case, there was no water on the road...just a fish walking across it.

Darned jay walkers. They should stick to the bicycle lanes like they do in Holland.
BB

[Shaggy Hiker]

Now that I think about it, I don't remember ever seeing a pedestrian crossing in South Florida. They're probably found there, unless the state figured that half the population couldn't make it across the road anyways, and the other half can fend for themselves.

[dday9]

IÂ’m not in a good place. There is substantial damage.

[wes4dbt]

Sounds like you've make it back home. Don't waste your energy on what's already happened, save it for moving forward and rebuilding. Good luck.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Structural damage? Water damage?

The roof is clearly a loss, based on the pictures, but that's relatively easy to repair. Windows aren't hard, either, though a bit of a nuisance. Water damage though....that one can do you in.

When I was growing up, my neighbors house burned somewhat. The fire damage was limited to part of the second floor, but the water damage from extinguishing the fire meant that pretty nearly the entire house was gutted and rebuilt.

[dday9]

There’s water in every room but the master bedroom and the main bathroom.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Ouch. The bathroom could probably take it better than any other room in the house.

That's pretty bad. If there hadn't been a storm, the solution would be reasonably straightforward, as there are companies that specialize in quick drying a house, but I can only imagine that they have more work than they can possibly handle, at the moment.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Do you have any functional electricity? I suppose you might be able to get every fan you can find. Dehumidifiers (and air conditioners) would also be good, if you can find them.

[dday9]

We have a generator that we plan on bringing Saturday.

[Delaney]

if you don't have anymore water in the main bathroom, it can be also pretty bad .

A sorry try to make you smile in this time of difficulties

[Shaggy Hiker]

Too little...unless you happened to live in a desert. Out here, it's kind of like: Water? That'll be gone in a few hours anyways.

[wes4dbt]

They had some crazy flooding in the NY City area. Saw some incredible video on the news last night. Some of the subways were swamped. Looked like white water rapids coming down the stairs.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Did the alligators get loose from the sewers?

[FunkyDexter]

Jeez, DD! I only opened up this thread today but glad to hear you and your family are OK and sorry to hear about the property. Do you have insurance to cover the damage? (I seem to remember you were selling insurance weren't you?)

Whatever, though, just remember that stuff's just stuff. You and your family are what matters.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Yeah, I was thinking that there's probably nobody on this forum who is better qualified to understand the insurance situation than DDay. I was also thinking that there's a reason I don't want to live in hurricane or tornado prone areas. We just have wildfires and earthquakes. The former are predictable and manageable (not that we always manage effectively, but they ARE manageable), while the latter are rare.

[dday9]

Unfortunately, when I paid off my home I rolled the dice and self insured. Homeowners insurance would have cost around $2,500 a year with a 5% wind and hail deductible which would have come out to $7,500 out of pocket. I figured that if I saved enough money that it would be worth self insuring, never expecting the second largest hurricane to take a direct hit on my house.

[wes4dbt]

Yeah, I was thinking that there's probably nobody on this forum who is better qualified to understand the insurance situation than DDay. I was also thinking that there's a reason I don't want to live in hurricane or tornado prone areas. We just have wildfires and earthquakes. The former are predictable and manageable (not that we always manage effectively, but they ARE manageable), while the latter are rare.

Yeah, Ca. central valley is hot in the summer but, no hurricanes, tornados. All earthquakes are far enough away that they are mild when they reach us, fires are far enough a way that we only have to deal with some smoke. But I wouldn't call them predictable and manageable. You can predict there will be fires, that's about it.

But if this drought continues for several more years, I think Ca. agriculture will start to collapse. This whole area will turn back to desert.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Unfortunately, when I paid off my home I rolled the dice and self insured. Homeowners insurance would have cost around $2,500 a year with a 5% wind and hail deductible which would have come out to $7,500 out of pocket. I figured that if I saved enough money that it would be worth self insuring, never expecting the second largest hurricane to take a direct hit on my house.

Your homeowners would have been $2500?!?!? WHY??? Is that with flood insurance, or is there something else? I'm not even sure what I pay. It's small enough that I don't pay it much attention, but I'm pretty doggone sure it's only around a fifth of that.

[dday9]

Your homeowners would have been $2500?!?!? WHY??? Is that with flood insurance, or is there something else? I'm not even sure what I pay. It's small enough that I don't pay it much attention, but I'm pretty doggone sure it's only around a fifth of that.

No, that would be for just the homeowners. The reason it is so high is because of the location. If I were to purchase flood insurance, it actually wouldn't be bad because I'm in a flood zone B so it was something like $500 for the year.

The way homeowners insurance works here is that your wind and hail deductible is a percentage of your dwelling coverage. So in my case, coverage is $150,000 on the home and 5% of that is $7,500.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Geeze, all WE have to worry about is burning down....

[Shaggy Hiker]

If we paid 5%, I'd be going broke fast. My house has tripled in value in the last few years. In fact, if I take the low point it hit around 2008, it's probably about a five fold increase. It got down around $60K, and is now up around $300K, but it's been rising so fast I don't know if that $300K is high or low. If it's high...give it a couple more months.

[dday9]

Yeah, that's why I tried justifying not carrying the insurance. I knew that even if I did have the insurance that I'd need to take out a loan just to meet my deductible.

[dday9]

By the way, that $2,500 was with a 5% deductible. My first quote was for a 2% deductible and the premium was over $5k. I can't remember the exact price, but I remember almost falling out of my seat.

[Shaggy Hiker]

That certainly sounds like some pretty high insurance rates. I suppose, hurricanes and tornados do tend to drive it up. We have hail, and we have windstorms, but nothing like what you get.

[FunkyDexter]

By "Self Insure" do you mean saving money yourself to use against a possible crisis? I do that for smaller things but I'd be terrified to do it with household insurance. Mind you, if the premium was £2500 I might think twice

For comparison I looked up the cost of my last house insurance renewal. It was £197 and that's on a house worth just shy of £400K. I guess we live in very different worlds. Mind you, in the UK the biggest risk from the weather is that the house might become depressed and start questioning it's life choices.

Have you had a chance to assess what the cost of the damage could be yet?

[dday9]

We went out on Wednesday and did a preliminary assessment. I mean, the biggest issue is going to be the water damage. Thankfully there’s no structural damage to my roof, so it’ll be anywhere between $6k -$8k to replace. The biggest unknown is how much water got in the walls/ceilings/floor.