Posted on 09/30/2013 12:13:09 PM PDT by SatinDoll
When Superstorm Sandy slammed into New York and New Jersey last fall, it sent massive floods through the streets of coastal towns and cities across the Northeast, turning areas like Toms River, N.J., into something like a war zone.
But nearly a year later, residents there and in many other coastal communities across the U.S. face a potentially far more devastating menace: a nationwide revamp of flood insurance rates, forcing premiums that were once around $500 per year into the $5,000-, $10,000- and even $20,000-a-year range and higher.
"The adverse effect of [this] would be more devastating than Hurricane Katrina," Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon said in an interview with weather.com, noting the crippling economic damage the historic 2005 storm left behind on the Gulf coast. "Because it will render literally thousands of properties in my state worthless."
What's prompting reactions like this is the Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012, passed by Congress last summer and often called "Biggert-Waters" for its two Congressional sponsors: former Illinois Rep. Judy Biggert and Rep. Maxine Waters of California.
The act made sweeping changes to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) – which has been the only provider of flood insurance for homes and businesses across the U.S. since its creation in 1968 – with the goal of raising rates to reflect the true actuarial risk of properties in flood zones.
(Excerpt) Read more at weather.com ...
What, no volcano insurance?
I’m not so sure about that. But in any event, it’s hard to compare large scale development of major ports, like New Orleans, to selling homes to unqualified buyers.
There are two questions: is the economic growth that occurs because of development of places like New Orleans more than the cost of the subsidy? If so, then we should institute a subsidy. Subsidies aren’t all bad.
The second question, now that we have a subsidy and have decided that we may not like it, is how to go about eliminating the subsidy with the least amount of damage, given that people have made purchasing decisions in reliance on the subsidy?
These aren’t easy questions. Anyone who says so is fooling themselves.
I’m not talking about New Orleans. I’m talking about development in the flood plains of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, for one. If you build it, it will flood.
Not true.
There was extensive construction (entire towns) in flood plains along the coasts and major rivers, since the 19th century.
Long before government subsidized flood insurance.
The interesting question is, who pressured, campaigned and lobbied for that government handout? Rich people along the Eastern Seaboard
How has that worked out?
Sorry for his loss but you can’t write material better than that! Take a pic and frame it!
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