Another hurricane approaches Florida: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040901/D84R3NQO1.html Let's see now. This is probably about the 87th hurricane to hit Florida within the past 50 years. And let's say that I drove my car down a certain street 87 times and got in an accident each time. My insurance company would cancel my coverage after the 2nd time. Yet we as a nation of people who pay insurance premiums have to pay increased premiums because people in Florida continue to rebuild in a known hurricane destruction zone YEAR after YEAR after YEAR ad infinitum. What's up with this madness? Why is it the rest of the nation's responsibility to continue to pay top dollar insurance premiums because some insurance company continues to issue home owner policies to people who live in HURRICANE ALLEY? This is TOTAL MADNESS!!! Somebody in Iowa or Arkansas or Texas couldn't get insurance to build a house in a flood plain. And only a fool would drive his car down the same road for the 87th time if he had gotten in an accident there 86 times before. Why must the rest of the country continue to bear a financial burden just because a bunch of idiots can't accept the realities of weather? If somebody can afford to build their mansion on the beach every 5 years or 2 weeks after the latest hurricane, let them do it WITHOUT INSURANCE because it's THEIR money to waste. But why should the rest of the country have to pay for such madness in the form of increased premiums, government disaster aid, etc.? Instead of paying people to rebuild their houses right back in the middle of HURRICANE ALLEY, let's vote to relocate them to the middle of a Nevada desert or some Wyoming sage brush field. It will be cheaper in the long run and will stop the madness.
I agree. However, the trailer parks where the illegal aliens live will actually see several hundred thousand dollars worth of improvements done to their neighboorhoods by this time next week...
i've often wondered about this. what exactly is the insurance setup for this sort of thing? do similar structures exist for earthquake areas in CA? or wildfire areas in the western part of the country? doody.
Obviously a structure could be built so that it would withstand this level of weather beating, yes? So if I were an insurance provider who provided coverage in FL, I would require people be built to "level 3" or whatever to cap my risk. If people were not sufficiently built, they'd have to pay through the nose to make it worth my while. Arlie has a good point - I don't care if those folks pay more for insurance, but what about the fact that the feds are always kicking in to pay for it all? How many billions per year does it work out to, so we can keep folks living in the hurricane belt and having their homes rebuilt every other year.
With as much money as I/we have already paid in through the years, I should be able to knock on anybody's door in south Florida and say, "Hello, I've arrived for my week long vacation and I'll be staying with you because I've already helped pay for your house!"
Actually, I'm glad to pay extra insurance for that. As much as I'm glad to pay taxes for our roads and police and firefighter and health (canada, eh!). My individualism has its limits in empathy. Not a problem with me.
Some kind of disaster can strike any where and at any time. If you limit people building in FL then what's next? Hoof people out of Califorina, or how about the Tornado states or how about New York City because that's where terrorists like to make a big impact? Or, how about Horsefly's town, that he didn't bother to put on his profile? A family member has just been spending the last couple of days boarding his house up that may be taken out on Saturday. I think we'd all be singing a different tune if in that position.
Excellent point and the answer is: yes, easily. Only problem is that the houses wouldn't be big, tall, square boxes like most people are used to seeing.
I have a house in south florida and the insurance is about 18k a year. That wind storm, flood and liability. Pay that 10 years in a row and you got a ferrari.
the majority of the damage is to mobile homes. that is why they should be banned. Being underpinned doesnt make them much safer. There are laws about the construction of regular homes, but some how, mobile homes are exempt. Strapping and being secured to the ground are two things mobile homes dont have to do, and then they put them in areas that are KNOWN for having tornados and floods from hurricains? I think that, just like in areas of houston you cant get flood insurance, you cant get storm insurance there.
I think that one could safely say that the odds of a hurricane striking south Florida are infinately greater than any specific disaster hitting some town in eastern Colorado or southern Missouri. Look at the track record. Dozens of hurricanes within the past few decades have hit southern Florida. With your logic, one would say that the odds of having your house destroyed by a hot lava flow are the same in Michigan as they are in Hawaii??? Little Rock, Arkansas which, for some strange reason, has never been wiped out by a hurricane, or a hot lava flow. I certainly would be singing a different tune and doing things differently. After 50 or 60 years of modern hurricane damage experience in south Florida, I certainly wouldn't be a typical southern Florida idiot and run to the Home Depot on the afternoon before the hurricane hits in a desperate attempt to buy some non-existant plywood to nail over my windows in the rainy, dark final evening before meteorological Armegeddon. I would have enough common sense to AT LEAST have a set of pre-engineered plywood covers to hang over my windows on some pre-installed hooks and latches so that they could be installed within an hour while my neighbors are running around in a panic trying to to buy leftover plywood scraps at some mom and pop lumberyard. Do Floridians wait until their stomach starts growling before they go grocery shopping?
Along the same lines... I love the people you see on the news after their house has been ruined in a flood. They stand there crying and say "Well this is the fourth time our house has been flooded out. What can we do but rebuild again? Boo Hoo Hoo" I'll tell you what you can do...MOVE!!
What about the Billions of dollars in Revenue and Taxes generated by the Florida economy (agriculture/tourism etc) that help to finance the Federal government? I have not done the math but it may be that even with the Federal Aid every couple of years or so, Florida is still contributing more to the National wealth than taking from it.
