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FarPoint

(13,617 posts)
2. This is just one town...Yikes....
Fri Sep 27, 2024, 08:52 AM
Sep 27

Insurance just is not going to pay...my fear anyways...

How is this all going to get cleaned up????? Where will they dump the trash???

Who will clean it up? Haitians??? probably because they care regardless.

moniss

(5,711 posts)
5. Reminds me of years ago
Fri Sep 27, 2024, 09:34 AM
Sep 27

in the '90's I believe or early 2000's when the panhandle got hit so hard. I was driving along the highway about a year or so after the storm hit and there was still wreckage all along the beaches. Takes a long time to come back from these things sometimes.

PJMcK

(22,886 posts)
9. A sad irony of hurricanes
Fri Sep 27, 2024, 10:35 AM
Sep 27

The day after a hurricane is often quite beautiful with sunny skies and a light breeze. The irony is the contrast with the devastation the storm has wrought.

I wonder why anyone would rebuild after such a storm. Unless it’s built out of pre-stressed concrete, the new home is a sitting duck for the next storm. I guess that’s why home insurance is a problem in Florida.

rubbersole

(8,504 posts)
16. Insurance companies are either hauling ass or doubling their rates.
Fri Sep 27, 2024, 11:59 AM
Sep 27

desantis is completely ignoring the problem. If the insurance company wants to sell any kind of insurance in Florida then they have to sell property insurance at competitive rates. It's the wild West now. Our rates doubled this year. It was already astronomical. We live beachside in New Smyrna and have been extremely lucky so far. But we are the red-headed step child to big insurance.

Baggies

(666 posts)
19. But insurance doesn't work that way.
Fri Sep 27, 2024, 09:23 PM
Sep 27

I don’t care what party the governor is from, you can’t entice insurance companies to stay by telling them to either sell affordable property insurance or they aren’t allowed to sell at all, because they’ll leave. I have a good friend who is the FL CEO of a major insurance company and he told me that in order to purchase $60 million in reinsurance they had to pay $61 million. You do that you eventually go broke. The insurance company he’s with is contemplating pulling out of the State, and there’s no one standing in line to come in, I guarantee that. Insurance companies either collect enough money in premiums to put in the pool to cover expenditures or they leave. Sux, I know, but that’s the cost of doing business.

Can homeowners in FL get some relief? A few decades without major storm damage would help. Frankly, I don’t know the solution. But I know what’s not the solution, and that’s saying that if the insurance companies want to sell any kind of insurance in Florida, then they have to sell property insurance at competitive rates.

rubbersole

(8,504 posts)
20. I have no doubt you are correct.
Fri Sep 27, 2024, 09:41 PM
Sep 27

I've just never seen an insurance company go broke.
Florida is going to be a property insurance nightmare forever. All the southern coastline actually.

waterwatcher123

(246 posts)
10. The trees seemed to have survived remarkably well (not so for the structures).
Fri Sep 27, 2024, 11:05 AM
Sep 27

There is no way to hurricane proof a barrier island. Luckily, it looks like most of the island was not completely reshaped or cut in half (probably due to the root systems of the trees and depth of the nearshore areas). Hopefully most of the homes were insured against hurricane damage (assume the commercial structures were insured).

jaxexpat

(7,785 posts)
15. Cedar key is not a typical gulf coast barrier island.
Fri Sep 27, 2024, 11:58 AM
Sep 27

There's a loy of silty mud in the soil structure. There are high areas around 25 feet ASL. There's even a paved runway in the northern area. The interconnected group of islands was created by the aluvial deposits of the Suwanee River which currently reaches the Gulf a few miles north. 30 miles of swamp isolates Cedar Key from the state's developable areas in the west and north central region.

The place is every one's horror show image of a Trumpist backwater. The infamous Rosewood massacre happened a few miles to the east and the folks around there are still proud of it when they aren't busy denying it. DeSantis' folks lived in those houses and condos designed and built below standards by unqualified engineers and contractors. It will not be rebuilt this decade or the next. This and other little burgs on the gulf coast of Florida will determine the coverage for home insurance for the foreseeable future and it's about time.

Cheezoholic

(2,613 posts)
17. It used to be one of the biggest drug running areas in the US because of that old dirt runway
Fri Sep 27, 2024, 01:12 PM
Sep 27

before there was a road to access it. I used to go out there before it got destroyed by development, it was such a cool little old time full blown Florida Cracker fishing village. Food was 10 times better than the fancy chefs cook out there now lol

jaxexpat

(7,785 posts)
18. Times have changed.
Fri Sep 27, 2024, 03:22 PM
Sep 27

First time I was ever there was 1973. Had a meal at the old hotel bldg cooked and served by a short black grandmother type. Swamp cabbage with lime sherbet and homemade peanut butter. Amazing, comfort food. Returned in 1996 and the best dockside restaurants were closed, the hotel renamed by I don't know. Last saw it two years ago and it had become an altogether different place. Not in a good way, either. The only souvenir tshirts were Trump trash. Not kidding, ALL the souvenirs were neo-nazi kkk junk with an attitude. So many single story houses built at the ground level. What were these people thinking? The damage from a 5' storm surge would cost more to repair than the city was worth.

mitch96

(14,652 posts)
11. I just got phone service back here in West Central Florida. I'm using my phone hot spot to get on the internets
Fri Sep 27, 2024, 11:13 AM
Sep 27

Fast? no but at least it works. My little town about 2 miles from the Gulf seems to be ok. My home is 60 feet above sea level so the only damage is just a bunch of tree branches scattered around. I'll do a walk about later. I hear on the radio that St Pete got wacked pretty hard. People in evacuation areas came back and they lost everything. St petersburg has tampa bay on one side and the Gulf on the other....uff
The only problem I have is NO POWER.
I'm use to no power after living in So Fla most of my life and going thru a few storms...
I have a Solar generator, Solar panels , small Honda gas generator and lots of ice...
And so it goes..
m
but But BUT our governor says it's not climate change...fecken ejit...

lpbk2713

(43,201 posts)
12. I've stayed at the Beachfront Motel several times.
Fri Sep 27, 2024, 11:16 AM
Sep 27


Now the first floor is completely gone. Nothing left of it but steel support poles.

Looks like I'll never stay there again.

angrychair

(9,734 posts)
13. It's a massive level of destruction
Fri Sep 27, 2024, 11:23 AM
Sep 27

But not nearly as bad as I anticipated. I saw first hand and up close the destruction of Hugo on Charleston, SC and Katrina on Pascagoula, MS
That was an epic level of destruction that defied description.
It's bad but given the strength and power of that hurricane it could have been so much worse.

littlemissmartypants

(25,483 posts)
14. I'm thankful for not seeing any corpses.
Fri Sep 27, 2024, 11:36 AM
Sep 27

Imagine having the job of inspecting all of those structures and having to be the one to tell the owners, the families whether or not they can return to their homes.

If you are lucky enough to have a possibility of rebuilding would you have the infrastructure left to support your needs for water, sewer, electricity and everything else?

Devastatingly sad state of affairs. I feel deeply for those who lost so much especially when so many people have so little to begin with in life.

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