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You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Time for Some Tough Love

Time for Some Tough Love

by John Cole|  October 11, 20059:34 am| 44 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics, Outrage

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This is insane:

In September 1998, Hurricane Georges swept up a beachfront house along the Gulf of Mexico and tossed it like a bowling ball into John and Gail Leacy’s summer home on the western edge of this barrier island. The Leacys collected thousands of dollars in federal flood insurance and rebuilt.

Last year, Hurricane Ivan slammed their Creole-style three-bedroom cottage with wind and floodwaters. And in late August, a wall of water from Hurricane Katrina severely undercut the house’s concrete pad and pilings.

“We’re still standing, but we’re pretty severely damaged,” Gail Leacy said from her year-round home in Mobile, Ala. “We hope we can save her.”
Dauphin Island is one of the most vulnerable barrier islands in the nation. Since 1979, it has been struck by six hurricanes and has lost nearly 500 expensive vacation homes and rental properties. Yet owners keep building back, trying to elevate their homes out of harm’s way. And the island has received more than $21 million in federal flood payments to help spur redevelopment.

Now, after Katrina, Leacy and hundreds of other Dauphin property owners will join thousands of others in the Gulf states filing claims against their federally backed flood insurance, putting enormous financial strain on the government-run program…

Nearly from its inception, the program has struggled to pay all its claims. It collects $2 billion in annual premiums but has no reserves, heavily subsidizes some of its riskiest customers and relies on the Treasury to bail it out when losses exceed income. Losses this year from Katrina and Hurricane Rita alone could top $10 billion, experts say, forcing the program to borrow billions from taxpayers with no guarantee of repayment.

$10 billion dollars to help subsidize John and Gail Leacy’s vacation home in a hurricane prone flood plain. Clearly I can not be the only person who read this and wanted to vomit. At some point, someone in charge is going to have to come to their senses and just say “No” to these people and those who continually choose to live in these areas yet expect a federal bailout every time ‘disaster’ strikes.

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44Comments

  1. 1.

    jobiuspublius

    October 11, 2005 at 9:57 am

    Right on, Cole. To top it off, it’s a fucking vacation home! Places like this are better off being wilderness preserves or whatever is the most anti-development zoning restriction.

  2. 2.

    jobiuspublius

    October 11, 2005 at 10:02 am

    C&L has a video of Stossel admitting to doing the same thing. He has a vacation home on the coast that repeatedly gets shreaded by storms and rebuilt by tax dollars. Then, he plays the saint for informing us of how he’s ripping us off and what a bad thing it is.

  3. 3.

    Gratefulcub

    October 11, 2005 at 10:11 am

    The city of Waveland Mississippi was destroyed during Katrina by a giant ‘wave’ (that is how the residents described it). Every building was destroyed. The only thing left standing was a sign commemorating the rebuilding of Waveland after hurricane Camille destroyed every building in town. They were standing around this sign talking about how they were going to rebuild again.

    If your sign, is a sign, and you still rebuild……no insurance for you!!

  4. 4.

    Pb

    October 11, 2005 at 10:19 am

    Apparently you’re new to this concept of federally backed insurance. Personally, I’d rather not have the government defaulting on its debts just yet. Solution? Raise the premiums for people in those areas, and perhaps generally as well, given the perceived increase in risk of late.

    Incidentally, now that we’ve got the bankruptcy bill taking effect soon, what’s your opinion on the corporations that still get away with murder, wrt. expecting the government to bail them out? How many times can an airline file for bankruptcy before it isn’t ‘too big to fail’ anymore? How many times can corporations raid their pension funds before the government refuses to be complicit in supporting and condoning their fraudulent activities, instead of holding the CEOs and corporations accountable for their actions?

  5. 5.

    Harlan James

    October 11, 2005 at 10:25 am

    C’mon, why all the fuss? Seems pretty obvious that Bush will renege on his promises to the people of Louisiana and Mississippi. He pulled the same stunt on the people of New York right after 9-11 as well.

    Once the photo-op is over Bush’s promises disappear into thin air.

  6. 6.

    Lines

    October 11, 2005 at 10:30 am

    See Pb, thats why John is still a Republican. People like you want to quibble about billions of dollars spent to bail out corrupt and mismanaged corporations while people in flood plains are getting tens of millions to rebuild previously economically viable cities.

  7. 7.

    Mark

    October 11, 2005 at 10:31 am

    I lived down in Mobile for 16 years. Trust me, there are a lot of people who even wonder why people are allowed to even build homes on Dauphin Island.

  8. 8.

    John Cole

    October 11, 2005 at 10:34 am

    See Pb, thats why John is still a Republican. People like you want to quibble about billions of dollars spent to bail out corrupt and mismanaged corporations while people in flood plains are getting tens of millions to rebuild previously economically viable cities.

    Actually, jackass, I am actually just against stupid policies that incentivize living in flood plains. And get this, although you are a lefty, I am going to ask you to juggle two thoughts at the same time- I am ALSO against bailing out corrput and mismanaged corporations!

    I honestly do not know why you people come here, when you clearly think the worst of me, and absent real knowledge about my thoughts, you just make things up.

  9. 9.

    Mr Furious

    October 11, 2005 at 10:37 am

    Harlan-
    It’s different. Bush could reneg on NY, because they were never going to vote for him or his Party. The Republicans still need these people for something.

    Just like the “extra” relief money in florida last year.

  10. 10.

    Mr Furious

    October 11, 2005 at 10:44 am

    Heh. “Jackass” is one of my favorite words…

  11. 11.

    Lines

    October 11, 2005 at 10:44 am

    Jeez John, you can snark but your readers can’t?

    The reference to “The Democrats are conspiring to keep me Republican” type posts from a couple weeks ago.

    Lighten up, sheesh.

  12. 12.

    Tim F

    October 11, 2005 at 10:48 am

    Not a flood plain. They built on a barrier island in the Gulf, which is a thousand times worse. Flood plains don’t slowly migrate over time, leaving your house standing in the ocean ten years down the road, and that’s assuming that the semi-annual hurricanes don’t pitch it into the sea first. This couple is ten times as stupid as you thought in the beginning.

  13. 13.

    Mr Furious

    October 11, 2005 at 10:52 am

    Here’s the bullshit, summed up:

    Premiums vary by location and size of the home, with premiums in the Gulf Coast states averaging about $400 a year.

    John Leacy called it a “myth” that the program covers all the replacement costs and said he has paid thousands of dollars out of pocket for repairs. Still, he added, “to be honest, they probably lost money on me.”

    Ya think? Unless you were paying 25 grand a year, you bet your ass they lost money on you, chump.

    What I really need to know is what the premiums on Dauphin Island are. That $400 figure almost had me vomiting in my mouth—I pay two-three times that for regular homeowners insurance in a completely safe town. Then I realized it’s a “Gulf state average”. A high risk flood area like that island should be a fucking fortune to insure. If they can’t afford it, then they won’t own a house there. Which is fine by me.

  14. 14.

    Mr Furious

    October 11, 2005 at 10:56 am

    “This couple is ten times as stupid…”

    Wrong. the only stupid thing is going to the papers and expecting sympathy from me. These are rich people building second homes on an fucking sandbar fer crissakes. Then they rake in up to $350,000 per time destroyed to rebuild again. Woe is me.

  15. 15.

    Another Jeff

    October 11, 2005 at 11:05 am

    The Deputy FEMA directer that they quoted (insert Bush crony joke here) makes the most important point when he said that if they were a private insurer, they’d drop the properties.

    The FLood program needs to be able to put in some type of underwriting guidelines that enable them to either cancel or deny certain properties.

    Let’s face it, if your car was stolen once, and you continued parking it in the same place, and it was stolen a few more times, A) the company that you have your coverage with will cancel you and B) no other company is gonna want to write you.

    The National Flood program doesn’t have that option.

    And Mr Furious, I don’t know what kind of coverage this Leacy guy has, but that premium he quotes seems low. At my office in Philly, I just went and pulled up a flood policy for a client of mine who lives near the Schuykill River and with the $250,000 for the building, and $100,000 for his contents, he pays $581. And that’s for a property in an area nowhere near as risky as on a barrier island in the Gulf Coast.

  16. 16.

    ppGaz

    October 11, 2005 at 11:05 am

    John is right.

    My spouse is the guide on this one. She’s a RINO who is strongly pro-life, and we don’t talk much about politics because my strategy for winning arguments with her is still a work in progress after all these years. Which means, I don’t have one.

    Anyway, she looks at these hurricane-coast situations and just shakes her head. “Forget about helping them rebuild. Why isn’t it illegal to build there in the first place?”

    Gotta go with John and the missus on this one.

  17. 17.

    Cyrus

    October 11, 2005 at 11:12 am

    Is it class warfare to suggest that the government, while taking all the necessary steps to make a vital port habitable again, mitigate future disasters, and to some extent amend a failure to do so in the first place, should not spend that money on second homes and ruined yachts?

  18. 18.

    skip

    October 11, 2005 at 11:40 am

    As I recall, a town in Illinois was moved to higher ground. People in this predicament should be encouraged to do this.

    The cost/benefit could be allocated based on historical probabilities. Obviously, some locations should be turned back into lowland floodplain.

  19. 19.

    pmm

    October 11, 2005 at 11:49 am

    She’s a RINO who is strongly pro-life, and we don’t talk much about politics because my strategy for winning arguments with her is still a work in progress after all these years. Which means, I don’t have one.

    Too funny. Ppgaz, my fiance is a DINO. I was kind of hoping you’d have some tips (other than that I should listen to her.) Perhaps we should consider some sort of Double Indemnity plan…

  20. 20.

    Doug

    October 11, 2005 at 11:52 am

    As luck would have it, I rented a vacation home in Dauphin Island for a week this past April. Very swanky, on the west end. Couldn’t have been too far from the Leacy home. Four bedrooms, 2 floors plus a cupola on top with a 360 degree view. I think it rented for about $2,000 for the week.

    I was glad to be there, but I still don’t think my vacationing activity ought to be subsidized by the national flood insurance program.

    Oh, and just by the way, the shrimp there was unbelievably good. There’s a little shop on the north end of the island, near the bridge, that’ll sell you buckets of shrimp; steam and season ’em for you. The golf course, on the other hand, has a nice view of the ocean but looks like it’s been through a number of hurricanes.

    But, I digress.

  21. 21.

    TallDave

    October 11, 2005 at 12:01 pm

    Listen, lad. I built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started here, all there was was swamp. Other kings said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show ’em. It sank into the swamp. So, I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So, I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp, but the fourth one… stayed up! And that’s what you’re gonna get, lad: the strongest castle in these islands.

  22. 22.

    ppGaz

    October 11, 2005 at 12:04 pm

    I was kind of hoping you’d have some tips (other than that I should listen to her.)

    Memorize this sentence:

    “You were right, dear, and I was wrong.”

    Train yourself to say it even when you don’t believe it.

    Before you know it, you’ll be celebrating your 50th wedding anniversary.

  23. 23.

    metalgrid

    October 11, 2005 at 12:15 pm

    Ok got it. Welfare bad for rich people, but ok for poor people even though the rich disproportionately subsidize it.

    “Forget about helping them rebuild. Why isn’t it illegal to build there in the first place?”

    Why do you people always want to get government involved in these things? Helping them rebuild or making it illegal means the government is still involved. Why not just have government get out of the insurance business? People can build there but they’re on their own unless they can find a private insurance agent that will insure it.

    DINOs and RINOs, accomplices in getting government involved in peoples lives to no end.

  24. 24.

    Lines

    October 11, 2005 at 12:20 pm

    Imagine a world where half of the money spent on the Pentigon and failed pet projects (pork) was spent creating an agency that was full of competent people that looked at issues like FEMA flood insurance and coming up with intelligent and well thought out rules and regulations that benefitted the poorest Americans first, and the rich last.

    Now compare that with what we have today.

  25. 25.

    ppGaz

    October 11, 2005 at 12:22 pm

    Why do you people always want to get government involved in these things?

    “You people?” Snort. Fuck you, sir. WTF are you talking about?

    To your question: Because that’s what government is for. If government doesn’t exist to pass laws to prevent catastrophe, what does it exist for? We set aside land for wildlife. We can set it aside for having a coastal buffer against hurricanes.

    Government has failed citizens at many levels here. First of all, you have building codes. Why should we have dwellings that fall apart in weather that we know is coming? Or in locations that we know will flood, but are not resistant to flooding? Or safe in flood conditions?

    Second, you have waterway and wetland management … or I should say, mismanagement, in Louisiana. The flooding of New Orleans was 100% preventable! Perhaps the Dutch can assist with building the necessary infrastructures. But not until government gets off its ass.

    Third, you have FEMA. Need I say more?

    Citizens should demand good government, and repel government that wants to tell people what kind of sex to have.

  26. 26.

    Pb

    October 11, 2005 at 12:26 pm

    No thanks, Lines. I’d rather be depressed about all the obvious, criminally and ridiculously preventable and yet politically possible things. I don’t need to be day-dreaming about what if we had some sort of equitable, starry-eyed (and no doubt ‘socialist’) utopia in America, like the ones enjoyed by most other civilized and industrialized nations.

  27. 27.

    Lines

    October 11, 2005 at 12:34 pm

    Pb:

    At least you realize those countries arn’t “America” and therefore deserve scorn, derision and demonization. If we look at those countries and what is going right for them, well thats internationalism, and we need to fight it every waking moment. America is the best for one reason only, … Hmmm, ok, I had a reason and I lost it..

    Just trust me, its the best and everything we do and every way we do it is the best way.

    Katrina destroyed the Gulf Region because of too much French influence.

  28. 28.

    metalgrid

    October 11, 2005 at 12:35 pm

    ppGaz Says:

    Why do you people always want to get government involved in these things?

    “You people?” Snort. Fuck you, sir. WTF are you talking about?

    To your question: Because that’s what government is for. If government doesn’t exist to pass laws to prevent catastrophe, what does it exist for? We set aside land for wildlife. We can set it aside for having a coastal buffer against hurricanes.

    When government figures out how to prevent catastrophes, I’ll be the first to acknowledge it’s importance. So what did government do to prevent Katrina? 9/11? The only good government is at the local level and as little as possible at the federal level.


    Government has failed citizens at many levels here. First of all, you have building codes. Why should we have dwellings that fall apart in weather that we know is coming? Or in locations that we know will flood, but are not resistant to flooding? Or safe in flood conditions?

    Ok so I should have been more precise in targetting federal government. I have no problems with local governments enforcing building codes since they are more easily managed by the local citizenry and are more aware of what local threats, floods and weather conditions are. The federal one-size-fits-all doesn’t.


    Second, you have waterway and wetland management … or I should say, mismanagement, in Louisiana. The flooding of New Orleans was 100% preventable! Perhaps the Dutch can assist with building the necessary infrastructures. But not until government gets off its ass.
    Third, you have FEMA. Need I say more?

    Umm this just supports my point that ‘good government’ is an oxymoron.


    Citizens should demand good government, and repel government that wants to tell people what kind of sex to have.

    The only real place citizens can demand anything is at the local level because they have the wherewithall to change their government and have a bigger impact on it. At the federal level, groups of citizens are rather powerless to change anything. As for good government with respect to the feds, again, see my comment above regarding oxymorons.

  29. 29.

    ppGaz

    October 11, 2005 at 12:50 pm

    At the federal level, groups of citizens are rather powerless to change anything.

    That may or not be true, or seem to be true, at any given time. Certainly today with the federal government under full corporate and big-interest control, it seems that way.

    However, the Constitution is a set of instructions for constructing government that serves the people. The fact that it is not currently being used for that purpose doesn’t mean that it can’t be used for that purpose. It can, and will, when the people figure out that it’s important to do that. When they figure out that the DeLay-Schiavo model is dysfunctional, and the LBJ-Great Society model is not the alternative, then they’ll start asking for leaders who have something to offer besides demagoguery and platitudes.

    Call me an optimist, but I think that is doable.

  30. 30.

    over it

    October 11, 2005 at 12:51 pm

    I admit that I know almost nothing about home/flood insurance..but…it would make sense to me to impose a limit of 2 applications for full (or majority)coverage to repair a destroyed house in hurricane/flood prone areas. I say 2 instead of 1 because I figure that true accidents actually happen now and again. After having your home rebuilt by insurance dollars twice…..you are on your own should you decide to continue living there.

    Do you think that we could impose an idiot tax? ;)

  31. 31.

    Lines

    October 11, 2005 at 12:52 pm

    I firmly believe that we should continue to let corporations do our governance, after all, they have everyone’s best interest at heart, because without people, and without people having money, they make no profits.

    You’ll all see, soon the corporations will be swooping down upon the gulf states in bright shiny airplanes, checkbooks and engineers poised to make a real change to those states hit hardest so it doesn’t happen again.

  32. 32.

    Zach

    October 11, 2005 at 12:58 pm

    Actually the previously maligned James Lee Witt did a lot of work getting people in the midwest moved out of floodplains. He made it a FEMA initiative to get as many people as possible out of flood prone areas.

  33. 33.

    metalgrid

    October 11, 2005 at 12:59 pm

    It can, and will, when the people figure out that it’s important to do that. When they figure out that the DeLay-Schiavo model is dysfunctional, and the LBJ-Great Society model is not the alternative, then they’ll start asking for leaders who have something to offer besides demagoguery and platitudes.

    People are way too busy voting for the lesser of the two evils to vote for any good.

  34. 34.

    Shygetz

    October 11, 2005 at 1:13 pm

    metalgrid–what good is there to vote for?

  35. 35.

    Doug

    October 11, 2005 at 1:42 pm

    I don’t know the ins and outs of flood law and certainly have no experience with coastal flood regulations — they may be different. But I do have some passing experience with inland flooding and national flood insurance. As I recall, national flood insurance is made available on the condition (probably one of many) that the local government impose building codes that prevent reconstruction in a flood plain or repair in a flood plain if the damage exceeds 50% of the value of the home. (I can’t recall how valuation is determined.) The repair figure is cumulative, so if you repair 25% once, 10% a second time, then you can’t get a permit to repair a third time if the cost of the repair exceeds 15% of the value of the home. I shouldn’t say you “can’t” do the repairs — I think that if you do, you’d have to put the home on stilts or some other way of minimizing the likelihood of future problems.

    So, the program makes at least some attempt to relocate people and stop building where floods are the most likely. Like I said though, things may be entirely different for coastal areas.

  36. 36.

    Krista

    October 11, 2005 at 2:25 pm

    People are way too busy voting for the lesser of the two evils to vote for any good.

    I gotta say, there’s a good point there. When people get involved in local politics, they’re close enough to their contituents to be kept humble to a degree, and to not be able to easily ignore those who are screwed over. As well, because the climb in local politics is a lot shorter, they don’t have as much of their conscience beat out of them by years of favours, lobby groups, and…well…politics! Most politicians on the federal level have been so perverted by the process that they bear no resemblance to an actual human being by the time they get to the top.

  37. 37.

    Maureen Hay

    October 11, 2005 at 2:58 pm

    Knew someone who worked on this in DC. They would get provisions in the insurance policies that people would only be allowed to rebuild once. But then a big disaster like Katrina would come along, and there would be a big political push to allow everyone to rebuild. (Didn’t want to look like they were screwing over homeowners, didn’t trust the media to point out that the people screaming that the government was making them homeless were in fact talking about a second home that the government had rebuilt several times already.)

    When you go out to Cape Cod or Nantucket, the older houses on the beach and dunes are small, wooden buildings, not much more than a shack. That is the sort of house that should be allowed in coastal flood areas. No fancy, might as well be home in my McMansion, houses.

  38. 38.

    Zifnab

    October 11, 2005 at 6:37 pm

    I think the solution for this particular case is fairly simple. Just cap the damages. If you only insure a property for $50,000 or $100,000 then you can’t complain when a guy builds a $1 million home five times on the country’s dime.

    On the flip side, not every beachside property is a mansion by the sea. Beaches might be hurricane prone, but they’re also financially lucrative. If I build a $50 million Hilton hotel, I then need to staff that hotel with a few hundred people, who in turn have to live somewhere nearby. All these workers and property owners are taxpaying citizens. They’re labor goes toward perpetuating the US economy.

    So while I can sympathize with the taxpayer who cringes at rebuilding Dick and Jane’s seaside palace for the seventh time, when it comes to subsidizing Bob the ice cream vendor who’s living in a trailer in a run-down part of town five miles off the coast barely making ends meet BEFORE a hurricane, my heart no longer goes out to the fiscal conservative.

    The way I see it, this is the same logic that proclaims, “How dare you live in flood-prone Lousiana, population 450k?” People go where they can find work. If work is by the beach, how can you fault them for seeking employement against the risk of natural disaster?

    I really do get tired of the conservative ‘How dare you not be as smart and successful as me!’ mentality.

  39. 39.

    Halffasthero

    October 11, 2005 at 6:45 pm

    but…it would make sense to me to impose a limit of 2 applications for full (or majority)coverage to repair a destroyed house in hurricane/flood prone areas. I say 2 instead of 1 because I figure that true accidents actually happen now and again.

    I am a little reluctant to post on insurance issues since the last time I did (working in insurance as I do) peeps jumped down my throat.

    I agree with this, however – stipulating that there is a time limit after which one would drop off. Flood and hurricane prone areas have no business building along that area. Put the local government (nd thus the local population) partially on the hook for some of the financial responsibility and I guarantee they will NOT try to expand their tax base into these areas if they know they will take a financial hit.

  40. 40.

    Cassidy

    October 11, 2005 at 7:38 pm

    “Do you think that we could impose an idiot tax? ;)”

    I thought that is what the lottery was for?

  41. 41.

    DougJ

    October 11, 2005 at 11:44 pm

    No one could have anticipated that these homes would be flooded. I say we spend whatever it takes to rebuild them.

  42. 42.

    Sinequanon

    October 12, 2005 at 1:09 am

    That story is not the lone ranger either. This is often atypical and relays directly ‘property rights.” This is a health, safety, and welfare issue. Once someone is paid once for a flood in these zones, I say we own that property and NOTHING else can be built on it – just pay em off – its cheaper in the long term. People are allowed to build in 100 year flood plains all the time and it is tragic and destroys the very ecosystems that prevent flooding and property damage events. But, then we care not for our environment any more, do we? Makes me absolutely ill all together.

  43. 43.

    scott

    October 26, 2005 at 1:21 am

    I just thought I would mention two things before everyone gets so bent out of shape about subsidizing that couple’s vacation home. First, contrary to that article that was originally posted, the Flood insurance program is NOT subsidized by taxpayer dollars. In fact, it actually does have a fairly huge SURPLUS. However, like all surpluses that are garnerned by the government, this money is undoubtedly swiftly used for other programs. Thus, when a big flood disaster comes along (like Katrina), that money has already been spent, and people feel like they are “bailing out” the flood victims when they actually are not. I’ll point you to the NFIP website. Notice the last paragraph that mentions that the program is entirely self-sustaining and that all payouts are done with premiums collected from other policyholders and not “the taxpayers.”

    http://www.fema.gov/nwz03/nwz03_101.shtm

    Second, professor Scott Douglass, a noted coastal engineer has written a book called “Saving America’s Beaches.” In it, he explains that most of the coastal erosion that takes place is actually the result of man-made interventions like jetties and dredging practices. In the case of Dauphin Island, what is going on is that the Corps of Engineers has been dredging Mobile Bay and dumping the sand that they collect far out into the Gulf of Mexico. This sand is what has, for generations, nourished (naturally) the beaches on Dauphin Island. It has been estimated that this practice has resulted in the loss of close to a football field’s worth of sand on Dauphin Island over the last several decades. This is really not in dispute. If this sand had been there, as it should have, then hurricanes would not have done near the damage to Dauphin Island that you are reading about.

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  1. Hiding in the Backwaters » Blog Archive » Classic Quotes says:
    October 13, 2005 at 11:03 am

    […] Classic Quotes People are way too busy voting for the lesser of the two evils to vote for any good. “metalgrid”, Balloon Juice Comments, October 11, 2005 The president’s so stubborn that were he captain of the Titanic, he would have run the ship into a second iceberg to prove he meant to hit the first one. Rogers Cadenhead, Workbench, October 8, 2005 […]

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