Helene hit Florida's Gulf Coast last week

Can someone explain what it means to self insure? Does this mean you have no mortgage and neglect to carry homeowners?

 

Landslides are basically like storm surge, except scarier since they are more random. I’m sure engineers can figure some slopes as more stable than others, but some of the footage I’ve seen has made me rethink ever actually buying anything in those rural mountain areas (or even Asheville for that matter). I’ll stick with VRBO and Airbnb.

The place we rented is now totally inaccessible from what I’ve heard (frankly don’t know anybody up there to check status, but someone on a community page claimed their grandmother and others had to be rescued by national guard helicopters, crazy if true).

 

Coincidentally, wife was planning on flying into Asheville next month and visiting friend in Hendersonville. Not sure that trip will ever happen now.
Also, we were considering buying something in St Pete. Gonna rethink that one. Have a family member living in st Pete who had a foot of water in the house and their car in the driveway is a total loss. Unfortunately for them they were out of the country when Helene hit.
At least the relatives can afford a quick rehab before insurance comes in. Not true of most folks. Gonna be a lot of tough stories out there.

 

Friend of mine has a nice condo probably two blocks from the beach near St Pete. Private garage and then walk up to the house, water made it to the fifth step I think.
And remember, this wasn’t even remotely close to a worst case for the Tampa area, when the big one does come in on the right path, it will be worse than Katrina. And that’s not hyperbole, metro Tampa is considered a larger risk than New Orleans because of the bay basically trapping water as it gets pushed in along with the coastline on a storm from the south, it could come miles inland…with a much higher population..

 

Yea, all that and there hasn't been a major cane in about 100 years so a lot of old houses and new toothpick apts will be quickly blown away. I lived in SFla during Andrew, remember it well.

 

The "new toothpick apartments" have to be designed to withstand cat 5 winds.

 

Saw the drone footage from there last night.
I believe that is a portion of the now partially drained lake. Its hard to fathom.

 

My kid lives in Boone. Right downtown off King Street. No looting reported. Mostly just people helping each other is what he is reporting to me. Some students are being silly drinking beer they find on the side of the road etc but, power is on, no internet, some water but he is drinking bottles. Delivery trucks are make it in. Students are heading home now that roads are opening. His neighbor's wife went into labor yesterday and took back roads out of Boone to get to hospital. She'll have a story.

 

Great answer. There are four ways of dealing with risk and you can see them mentioned in this thread:

Avoid - in lieu of buying a place people are looking to rent via VRBO or Airbnb. They choose not to be exposed.
Accept - to OklahomaGator's post above this is when you choose to accept the risk either entirely or for a significant retention (retain the risk).
Mitigate - various steps: purchase hurricane resistant windows, build a "Key West" home (essentially on stilts), live farther inland
Transfer - this is insurance: you contractually are paying someone else to take on your risk for a fee (premium)

 

You can buy just hazard ins and leave off windstorm. I did that with a rental 17 years ago. Haven’t needed it as of yet.
That way you’re covered for fire, etc.

 

Was asked "Are they more resources you could be given them" and said "No, we've preplanned a significant amount of aid for them even though they haven't asked for it yet".

We have more Aid at their disposal than they have asked for at this point ...

That's a pretty far stretch to say "No more aid for Helena"...

 

Yes. Other than I would say choose rather than neglect.

 

2000 mules guy got led astray by misleading fake newz yet again???

 

They desperately want it to fit their narratives. And if the facts don't fit their narratives, they will just make stuff up until it does. A horrible disaster happens and their first thought is "how can I feel aggrieved by this disaster that happened to people?" Super weird.