Flooding Sucks

[TexaRican]

After painting, the floors came in

That floor looks great. I just had our house done in something very similar if not the exact same tile and we love it.

[hopedale]

Did it twice and both time, thank God, was no more than an 1/2" Just enough to pull up carpet, floors, baseboards, door frames, etc.

We had insurance, so was covered, but have since relocated to Texas.

Wife wants to move from where we are now to across town. However, where I'm at now there is no chance of flooding. I am at the top of a big arese hill. Hard to sell me on moving now for that reason alone.

Prayer sent for you. Hope this is the last time you deal with this.

[Mike]

I really hate seeing these threads but I know there will be more to come. Those threads of "man we need rain" will hit your soul a little different now after this situation.

I feel that Flooding has a different effect on a person. It did on me for sure. Ike in '08 was enough, the smell, the piles of debris, the constant labor every day, it takes a toll. It takes a while to shake it. Every year they show anniversary pictures around here and it gets brought up for the few weeks of September and I just look the other way, it was bad.

We had insurance so we got zilch from FEMA

Regarding FEMA, they are there to help those without flood insurance, which they did for me. If you have a flood policy, they will pass you right over as you will be taken care of by that policy, which in fact is under FEMA. In reality, FEMA took good care of those with flood policies. Unless you feel that you didn't get what you were entitled to, FEMA took care of everyone for the limits that are in place. I know here in Bridge City, they just wrote policy limits for contents and exact build back costs.

[wal1809]

I really hate seeing these threads but I know there will be more to come. Those threads of "man we need rain" will hit your soul a little different now after this situation.

I feel that Flooding has a different effect on a person. It did on me for sure. Ike in '08 was enough, the smell, the piles of debris, the constant labor every day, it takes a toll. It takes a while to shake it. Every year they show anniversary pictures around here and it gets brought up for the few weeks of September and I just look the other way, it was bad.



Regarding FEMA, they are there to help those without flood insurance, which they did for me. If you have a flood policy, they will pass you right over as you will be taken care of by that policy, which in fact is under FEMA. In reality, FEMA took good care of those with flood policies. Unless you feel that you didn't get what you were entitled to, FEMA took care of everyone for the limits that are in place. I know here in Bridge City, they just wrote policy limits for contents and exact build back costs.

FEMA sucks giant donkey hot dogs! All they did was push a loan through the SBA. You sit down with them and the people on the other side of the desk are as stupid as chicken doo doo on a pump handle.

[wal1809]

Just after daylight April 19, 2016.



Woman get my guns out of here while I have a coffee.



This Labrador enjoyed every minute of the flood and prays for rain everyday



The water on its way out the next day. it got up passed the windows.




We almost lost Ricky Bobby, my wife's Yorkshire Terrier. He tried to swim from land to the house while we were inside. The current swept him away and he got hung up in the chicken wire on the chicken yard fence. I fear he had only moments left before drowning.

There are a ton of bad contractors out there right now. My neighbor, I watched his kids grow up from diapers, been on the same deer lease, here to help, don't worry I got this, turned out to be a GD thief. Tried stealing $40,000. Ohhhh I want to spit in that dude's eyeball. The next "Highly" recommended contractor, still not done. I have been commuting from my sisters house to work 3.5 hours on the road to and from every freaking day. I hold fema and contractors in the same regards.

[kmitchl]

Regarding FEMA, they are there to help those without flood insurance, which they did for me. If you have a flood policy, they will pass you right over as you will be taken care of by that policy, which in fact is under FEMA. In reality, FEMA took good care of those with flood policies. Unless you feel that you didn't get what you were entitled to, FEMA took care of everyone for the limits that are in place. I know here in Bridge City, they just wrote policy limits for contents and exact build back costs.

So because I was responsible and PAID for flood insurance I become ineligible for FEMA assistance? But those who determined they did not need to buy flood insurance are eligible for benefits from the taxes we all pay? Why am I any less qualified for assistance? Sorry, I can't make that mental leap. Just another form of socialism IMO.

Why don't we make flood insurance mandatory like Obamacare? Then there would be a larger pool of payers into the pool and everyone's premiums would go down.

[HogHunter34]

FEMA didn't help at all and I had no flood insurance. I paid every dime myself out of pocket to restore our home. We were flooded end of April of this year. FEMA approved support for our county (Smith) for both tornado damage & flooding for our area. Of course it was 3 months after the fact back in July. I filed to see if I could get reimbursement. I had pictures of water in house, flood cut Sheetrock and all damage & receipts of all work done both labor & supplies. We had to stay in a hotel for 5 nights during demo to avoid breathing cut Sheetrock dust. FEMA denied my claim and I appealed twice & they denied both appeals. I ended up calling them and they told me they don't reimburse spent funds & basically said they only help those still in restoration phase. Basically, if you fix it yourself before they approve funding, your out of luck. I spent excess of $10K. FEMA was no help at all for our situation. Glad to hear others got help

[wal1809]

HogHunter I will add to your statement as to how bad FEMA sucks. Its not secret I am the police I reckon. FEMA guy calls and talks me back into stopping by the Fulshear, Texas location to fill out some paperwork. I am in uniform and required by police to be armed at all times while in uniform. The only time I am allowed to not be armed in this city is during a sporting event (Clothing would not allow me to be armed). I have a 1.5 hour drive to work and a 2.5 hour drive home to my sister's house where I am staying. I stop by, was greeted by the federal security guard. He checked my credentials and in I go. I sit down and all of a sudden this buffalo of a woman comes over on a rant and tells me to go to my car and disarm myself. Nope! Not happening! I am not about to sit like a target, IN UNIFORM, unarmed. I was told to leave. I left, screw you FEMA! The first number they are going to call when the doo doo hits the fan is 911. Good luck!

[TXHUNT3R]

It is a weird system for sure, and I surely don't understand it.

Like I stated when I started this thread, we would be getting insurance. Well we did and paid our dues.

Its is through FEMA. I don't get it.

Prayers for all those effected, it is a huge PIA when mother nature acts out.

[HogHunter34]

Yeah I don't understand the whole process. My argument as a homeowner is you have to act quickly to remove water & water soaked items. It's not like you can sit around & wait to see if FEMA approved funding 3 months later. You can't risk further damage to your home as water can migrate into insulation & then your dealing with mold growth & potential health issues. Most people start fixing the problems & of course have to pay for new flooring, etc... So what good is FEMA funding 3 months later who denies your claim? Do you have to be sitting there in a water logged home with mildew smell when FEMA arrives? Makes no sense to me

[TXHUNT3R]

Yeah I don't understand the whole process. My argument as a homeowner is you have to act quickly to remove water & water soaked items. It's not like you can sit around & wait to see if FEMA approved funding 3 months later. You can't risk further damage to your home as water can migrate into insulation & then your dealing with mold growth & potential health issues. Most people start fixing the problems & of course have to pay for new flooring, etc... So what good is FEMA funding 3 months later who denies your claim? Do you have to be sitting there in a water logged home with mildew smell when FEMA arrives? Makes no sense to me

Agree, leaving it is not even an option. Everything must come out as soon as water is out.

[kmitchl]

While we are on this topic, let me tell you about my experience with flood insurance. The first call you should make when you are flooded is to the insurance company. They will assign an adjuster and the adjuster will get in touch usually pretty promptly. In my case my insurance was through Farmers. Farmers uses a third party, Colonial Claims out of Florida, to handle their flood claims. The adjuster is an independent contractor with absolutely no skin in the game. The adjuster gets paid based on the size of the claim. So the adjuster rides into town and surveys as many claims as possible then retreats to the comforts of their home base to develop the "estimate". I was flooded on Monday and the adjuster surveyed my claim on the following Thursday. My claim was the first the adjuster surveyed after he arrived in town. You have up to 60 days to file your claim, however, unless you are a general contractor with considerable resources trying to file your claim without the estimate from the adjuster is about like trying to do an appendectomy on yourself without access to youtube. Since my claim was surveyed early in the process, I would have expected to get my estimate reasonably quickly. Not the case. I suspect the adjuster processed the low hanging fruit first to generate some cash flow. I finally got my estimate about seven days before the 60 day period expired. This was after several emails to the adjuster's boss and arrogant replies from the adjuster. During the time you wait for the estimate you have two choices; do the mitigation and start the reconstruction or do nothing. If you start the reconstruction before you get the estimate you have no idea of your budget to rebuild. So you are just flying blind and hoping for the best. During this period you can request an advance against your future settlement, however, in my experience the advances were not enough to make any real progress toward reconstruction. Without an advance you are working out of your own pocket.

After you get your estimate you either approve or dispute it. Regardless you have the 60 day deadline to agree. If you have contents insurance, the estimate will address both contents and structure. The estimate will show an estimated cost to rebuild less your deductible less depreciation. Depreciation is based as I understand on the age of the house and condition as observed by the adjuster. After we agreed to the estimate it took another 30 days before we got our check. If you own your house outright the check is payable to you. If you have a mortgage the check will require their signature. They hold the money and dole it out at their convenience.

So from the time of the flood event to when you get money to pay for the reconstruction is about 90 days. Also, flood insurance does not pay living expenses if your house is not habitable during this time. We were able to migrate to the second floor and survive like barn rats while we rebuilt. Those with single story houses were not so fortunate.

If I knew how I would put up a web page with everything we learned in this experience. It was all new to us and I found little guidance on the internet. So we had to feel our way along and make our own mistakes.

Make no mistake, we were very blessed in many respects. We had removed a lot of furniture including all of my guns and gun safe to stage the house to sell. So our personal property losses were minimal. We got help from a number of sources including friends and churches during this process. We know our neighbors much better now than before. Everyone was dealing with similar issues so we did a lot of networking. We were able to update a number of things in a 35 YO house.

[ETXHorseApple]

Ive got a bunch of family that live in Hempstead and they had the same issues. We lost quite a few cattle too.