I survived Ivan and halfway through it, decided this is some pretty serious stuff. I have been in many a (emer:) situation in my careers, but Ivan was for real. The hurricane sounded like two freight trains outside my house and we had several twisters grace us, as well. I did not sleep that night and was glad for morning to come. We had much damage, but I thank God we made it through Ivan unharmed. We rebuilt and had good ole USAA home insurance, so all worked out for us. I hope all the good people affected by hurricane Sandy, fair just as well.P.S. Our local Co-op sent some utility trucks and workers to NJ and NY to help along with Escambia County Florida.
Respectfully,
John
I moved to Florida in 2004 and almost immediately got hit by Charley, Frances, and Jeanne. Lost a lot of trees, had to replace my roof, had flooding, and went without power for two weeks each with Charley and Frances.
When Ivan hit the panhandle, I had a friend who worked for FEMA doing damage assessments. Talk about overpaid government workers! Besides making a fantastic salary they got free housing, food money, gas money, even dry cleaning money. I went up for about a week, stayed in a beautiful FEMA-paid gulf front condo in Destin, and traveled around with him looking at damaged properties. I saw water damage but no fire damage. Your theory that people set their houses on fire to collect insurance monies is pure BS.
Yes, there was damage but I can’t compare it with the pictures I’m seeing from Rockaway, from the entire metro area. They’re now saying 110 houses burned to the ground in Breezy. That was in a 3 or 4 block area. And that’s only a small section of the beach. Don’t be fooled by the numbers: Cat. 1 vs Cat. 5. You can’t compare the scarcely populated panhandle to a densely populated city.
Most New Yorker’s live in apartment buildings. I lived in a small building with only 72 families. Some have twice as many or more. And several building will be on a single block. That’s hundreds families in a very small area with no power, no water, no way to flush a toilet, no place to dispose of garbage, no heat, no stores, blocked roads, trapped where they are. Right now the temp is in the 40’s, is going down to the 30’s by the weekend.
Check out some of the Youtube videos being posted of different parts of Rockaway:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzL-MFbxgTc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hok220ROmUg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjYdm5PAVR0&feature=channel&list=UL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVO5sY_o26A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpRNT-If6Pw