Why were all the RV's left in the flood?

Last year we had to evacuate because of Hurricane Matthew. We were gone within a few hours of the posting of a Mandatory Evacuation. The posting was a little more than 36 hours before the Hurricane was to be in our area. We packed up the motorhome and drove west about 175 miles. We live in a county with a little more than 100,000 people. Traffic was moving along the evacuation route pretty well when not going through larger towns. It would have been a completely different story if there were 6.5 million people trying to evacuate.

We had the luxury of driving a 1/4 mile and picking up our motorhome from storage, packing it up and going. Now that we own a large TT that we leave at our seasonal site year 'round about 800 miles from home, it would be hard to drop everything, get to our TT and move it to safety. It's a 12 hour drive without traffic to get to our TT. Once I got there, I'd evacuate west, which means trying to get through Philadelphia traffic which is terrible at 10 am on a Sunday. It would be bumper to bumper for hours and hours on end. It would be pointless to even try.

We'd just hope for the best.

-Michael

Fact! In the coming months they will be bargain prices for buying used RV's.
Hint!! Don't buy one before inspecting it. :)

Triker33 wrote:
Fact! In the coming months they will be bargain prices for buying used RV's.
Hint!! Don't buy one before inspecting it. :)

AND so may wonderful used cars to choose from. Yee haa

2 Retired wrote:
Reality, that's why! So many reports on just how fast the water rose, and how so many were left w/o ways to get away. Don't think it was a matter of "I have insurance so no problem". A number of these RVs were the only homes for those who lived in them. These people now have NOTHING. a "flash flood" by definition is one that occurs so fast escaping is dangerous. If I had to choose between getting my family out safely or taking the time to 'break camp', hook up the RV and increase the possibility of being in harm's way, I would also leave my RV behind. So many have stated that their homes were flooded, waist-high, in a matter of minutes. Many times, roads flood before homes do as well. By the time an RV owner realized his rig was in danger, it is likely he would be faced with impassable roads. This is no time for recriminations or finger-pointing or blame. As my Mom always told me: "Don't assume you know what the situation is for someone else. You aren't there!"

Very nicely said. :)

Hey, I see a safe place way inland: Oklahoma...oops, earthquakes, tornadoes, and floods. Okay, Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa, all way inland so must be safe...oops again, floods and tornadoes. Okay, Colorado, oops...avalanches, tornadoes, floods, and forest fires.

Gosh, what's a person to do except suck it up.

fj12ryder wrote:
Hey, I see a safe place way inland: Oklahoma...oops, earthquakes, tornadoes, and floods. Okay, Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa, all way inland so must be safe...oops again, floods and tornadoes. Okay, Colorado, oops...avalanches, tornadoes, floods, and forest fires.

Gosh, what's a person to do except suck it up.

No one can come up with a perfect spot but one can avoid may of the worst spots. If you have shopped property in the Houston area or just browse flood maps it's easy to realize that the population density is planted in the worst possible area. When shopping for property even when a realtor sends a suggestion is to go straight to the flood maps.

If you shop to the north you find some of the worst twisters. We dont shop and say give me the Tow vehicle that breaks the most or give me the TT with the most frame cracking issues. Probability.

I had property that had very low history of any natural damage but there were risks associated with it. It had sand soil so there was the risk of large trees easily blowing over and killing you in your house. What do you do? I cut down the species that were most known to blow over and the ones closest to the house. So what happens then? A wind storm comes through and people are killed by trees hitting their house or mobile home. Risk, reward, probability. Smarter ones cut the trees down.

It's probably a good thing we're not as smart as you. Otherwise we'd all be living on that same 5 acres, you know, the ones with no trees.

fj12ryder wrote:
Hey, I see a safe place way inland: Oklahoma...oops, earthquakes, tornadoes, and floods. Okay, Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa, all way inland so must be safe...oops again, floods and tornadoes. Okay, Colorado, oops...avalanches, tornadoes, floods, and forest fires.

Gosh, what's a person to do except suck it up.

Actually,
- if you don't live in a river flood plane, floods are a non-issue.
- All the tornadoes in all the states you listed for the last 20yrs don't come close to the number of homes destroyed by this one storm.
- No avalanches in Denver.

rxji is overly harsh but yes building in coastal areas really does need to be limited and done with natural disasters in mind.

For example, we took the boat down the River system from Chicago to Mobile. There were newer homes in the flood plane along many of the rivers but they were built on stilts ranging from 8-20' high. I'm sure it added to the construction costs but it changes a flood from a total devastation of the house to a nuisance and that's how it should be. It still bugs the heck out of me that they rebuilt many parts of New Orleans knowing full well the next storm is likely to destroy those same houses.

valhalla360 wrote:
Actually,
- if you don't live in a river flood plane, floods are a non-issue.

That's not really true. If nothing else, it's an issue because you're still going to end up paying for floods.

"Flood plane" is usually understood to mean a 1%/year chance of flooding ("100 year"). In those areas, pretty much any house with a mortgage is required by law to have federal flood insurance. But that program is broken and not self-supporting. They didn't charge enough, so premiums are insufficient to support payouts.

Obama signed a bill in 2014 which deliberately kept premiums low and even refunded some premiums. All of that amounts to a subsidy to those who chose to live in a flood plane, which is nothing but encouraging bad behavior. The government is still on the hook, so it will get a bailout paid for by all taxpayers.

But, much of the flooding in Houston goes well past that - beyond even the "500 year" flood plane. So it's not just those who "live in a river flood plane." That's a bit different - they could have bought flood insurance, but didn't. That, to me, was a risk/reward decision they made, and it would be wrong to bail them out now. But I'm sure there will be lots of pressure to do just that, since a lot of the cost will be borne by corporate mortgage lenders. If equity is less than the repair cost, lots of owners are going to just walk away, even if it requires bankruptcy.