No flood insurance for you!! I was speaking with a man yesterday

[HysteryDiagnosis]

whose sister or sister in law lives down near where the flooding took place in S. La. her slab is quite naturally on the ground. She had five feet of water in her house, she cannot rebuild and get insurance cuz her slab is too low. They are offering her 70 to 80 thousand for her house. She is currently living with the person I spoke with. She does however retain the option to rebuild without insurance and take her chances, which could be a good thing judging by Brownie's response and the bush administrations handling of the whole affair.

[northzax]

1. well, that sucks

but frankly, isn't a bad thing, overall. They are paying her insurance out, but why should the rest of us continue to subsidize and unsafe structure through insurance? You can't get earthquake insurance in California unless your building is built to withstand a certain earthquake, why give more flood insurance to someone who's house is likely to flood again?

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. I guess that program they had on the barrier the gulf used to have

before we screwed with it was something worth watching, I caught part of it... here is some data on it...

Ummmmm Houston, we have a problem, this is the before and after pic of the barrier islands... crap.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=13174
Hurricane Katrina’s strong winds, storm surge, and battering waves scoured the islands, leaving them reduced or gone altogether. These images of the islands were taken by the Landsat 5 satellite. The top image, taken on September 16, 2005, shows the Mississippi and Alabama coast line, including the line of islands that bore the brunt of Katrina’s fury. The lower images show the northern section of the Chandeleur Islands at full resolution. In the 11 months that passed between October 15, 2004, when the right image was taken, and September 16, 2005, when the left image was taken, the islands have wasted away.

[northzax]

3. that's what barrier islands do in storms

they wash away, move and are rebuilt. Not to say that human behaviour doesn't interact with them and cause greater damage, but they are sand islands, they move. The thing we do wrong is try to stop them from doing what they do. (See: the Outer Banks)