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

[TNGW1500SE]

I understand that sometimes you can't move an RV when the water is coming up but it looks like there's a lot of RV's that were just left to flood. I mine were there I'd have moved it up the road and out of the coming flood. Maybe some people didn't have gas money??? It would be cheaper on the insurance company to give the people 300 bucks for gas to move it. When there's this much warning, it seems like a bunch of them could have been moved.

[2112]

// rant ON
There is so much misinformation and speculation in this thread it's ridicules. You really think someone would tow their camper to Rockport just to make a claim? That's crazy to even think that!

If this happened 8 years ago or before my camper would have been in Rockport and I could not have driven down there to get it. I had too many other things to worry about. The camper would have been the least of my worries.

Wednesday afternoon Harvey was a weak Cat 1 expected to land south of Corpus. We are to expect rain. No big deal here. If my camper was in Rockport I would have blew it a kiss goodbye. I could not have drove down there to rescue it. Thursday afternoon it was expected to be a Cat 2, possibly Cat 3 coming into Corpus. It was estimated Houston would see TS winds and 30+" of rain. OK, that got our attention. It was advised people living in flood prone areas to take appropriate actions, including evacuation depending on your own situation. We know where it floods. This isn't our first rodeo. But we have never seen 50+" in such a short time span. Nobody expected this.

I wasn't worried about flooding but I did prep for an extended power outage on Friday.

As far as the flooding in the Houston area, in the past 5 days I have mucked and gutted 4 homes. None have ever came close to flooding before nor are they on a flood plane of concern. It just rained that much. The home I grew up in has never came close to flooding before and it took on a foot of water. My brother said he woke up Saturday morning to inches in the house and torrential downpours. Their street was flooded with no way out so they sat on their dining room table for almost 2 days. Even if he owned a camper that would have been the least of his worries.

Someone suggest I move to Oklahoma? Really? Leave my home, high paying job, family, friends, lifestyle, etc. to basically start over in Oklahoma? I would be lucky to find a job paying 25% of what I make here. And then what? We have lives here.

Say what you want or think what you like but as someone said, "You don't know what it's like unless you are there".

// rant OFF

[NJRVer]

There is an area around the Raritan river (I think) here in NJ.
The homes flooded so many times the state used eminent domain and paid the owners of the properties. So now, no more homes.

[toedtoes]

riven1950 wrote:
toedtoes, totally agreed. Flood insurance is required on Fed backed loans. Problem is the lenders sell the loans and then new lenders don't carry through, and of course Uncle Sam has no follow up, which is why there are only 20% or so covered. Probably will be a law suit against some lender because they didn't require it, which will be a bit ironic because it's the homeowners responsibility.

I know when I bought my house, I received the notice from the Feds for the insurance requirement. Had no connection with the actual loan or lender.

I expect there are folks in my area who just ignored the notification from the Feds. My lender never asked for proof of flood insurance - even when the lender changed. They only asked for proof of the standard homeowner's insurance. But I paid 20% down, so the insurance was not built into my loan.

About 8 years later, I received a notice from the Feds that I was no longer required to have flood insurance because of the levy improvements. They offered it to me at a higher rate than when it was required - I chose to cancel it at that time. My house is the safest in the neighborhood because it is not built on a concrete slab. I have about 1-1/2 ft of crawl space between my first floor and the ground. So water has a place to go before it gets inside.

I remember the big storms when I was a kid. The houses on either side of my parents' home flooded as the water came down the hill. My dad had put in cement walkways around the house that were slightly lower than the house and bordered them with brick. When the water ran down the hill it went through each house. Except ours. Instead, it ran through the walkways right past us.

I try to remember things like that when doing yard improvements. A simple thing that saved a lot of money.

[riven1950]

toedtoes, totally agreed. Flood insurance is required on Fed backed loans. Problem is the lenders sell the loans and then new lenders don't carry through, and of course Uncle Sam has no follow up, which is why there are only 20% or so covered. Probably will be a law suit against some lender because they didn't require it, which will be a bit ironic because it's the homeowners responsibility.

[toedtoes]

mike-s wrote:

riven1950 wrote:
BTW the government does NOT require flood insurance as you state, otherwise the problem would be much less than it is.

The federal government requires flood insurance for homes in a high risk area which are mortgaged to a federally associated institution. That's most mortgage lenders. Link.

Yes, some homeowners are required to have flood insurance. That can change as infrastructure improves, etc.

As a bit of historical background, I remember a tour in Sacramento California. When Sutter's Fort was established, people started building throughout the area. When they experienced too many floods due to the rivers swelling in the spring, they raised the ground level. What used to be the ground floor of buildings downtown is now underground basements. You can still see the paved roads and window openings in the walls.

So even areas that are not flood zones now, have been in the past.

[mike-s]

riven1950 wrote:
BTW the government does NOT require flood insurance as you state, otherwise the problem would be much less than it is.

The federal government requires flood insurance for homes in a high risk area which are mortgaged to a federally associated institution. That's most mortgage lenders. Link.

[riven1950]

minnow wrote:
Is reality setting in yet ? Between the government and the insurance companies, the message they are sending is that that don't want you living in an area that is subject to catastrophic weather events. Government requires you to have very high cost flood insurance that pays pennies on the dollar or not at all, takes years to resolve, homeowners insurance policy has 100's of exclusions absolving them of any legal obligation to pay and finally no tax write offs for catastrophic losses.

If one is determined to live in such areas. one needs to be resolved to having to be self-insured with no expectation that any company or government agency will provide any financial remuneration when your house is ripped off its foundation.

My reality set in but I think yours has a way to go.The government is not sending a message to not live in coastal areas, although smart local Governments do participate in the flood insurance program and require new construction to be built above the flood plain. BTW the government does NOT require flood insurance as you state, otherwise the problem would be much less than it is. Also, it does not pay pennies on the dollar, you can buy different levels of coverage, with or without contents, different deductibles. Get your story straight.

You seem to think everyone should pick up and move out of coastal / river areas. Look at a map of the US and figure out what it would look like. The reason these areas where developed when this country was growing is because, to a great degree, of the water access. Think about the ports and major cities, even places like St Louis are on the water for a reason. Don't think your reality has set in if you think this is going to reverse. I do agree people should buy insurance to protect themselves and not expect the tax payers to bail them out. That IS my reality.

[F350_RR]

kzspree320 wrote:

Many seem to not understand the term historical flooding. It means it has NEVER happened in recorded history. If it has never happened, how can you assume people should have been able to see it coming in time to react way ahead to time.

Many variations- it happened but was not recorded, it was recorded but knowledge not readily available, it happened but without extensive and expensive geological survey and study we won't get to know. Then there is the "we know but choose to ignore or cover up" variation. I lived in a town and documented one of the larger floods of the creek behind my house. A few years later a builder was permitted to build some houses on the other side of the creek which was 25 feet of so below our house. I pointed out that the proposed houses will eventually be surrounded by water. Built them anyway and expressed surprise when the brook flooded the houses and overran the sewer plantaround the bend. Fortunately no RV's drowned in that particular event

[kzspree320]

Toedtoes - Thank you. I really feel for these people. They do not yet know what is to come. It will probably be harder than most of them yet realize. What we found is, on average, that the older you are the harder it is on you. Those in their 30s and 40s with many working years ahead just borrowed and took out a 2nd mortgage SBA loan and moved on down the road. Those older and retired, many on fixed incomes, that had inadequate flood insurance have had their worlds turned upside down. We met an older gentleman in his 80s at Sherwin Williams. He had lived in the same house over 50 years. He had never come close to flooding and did not have flood insurance. He thought he had enough money to live the rest of his years comfortably and to travel some. The cost to rebuild his house was taking him from very comfortable to I'll never be able to travel or do anything the rest of my life. I left the store upset for him. I realize there are many in the same boat.

Many seem to not understand the term historical flooding. It means it has NEVER happened in recorded history. If it has never happened, how can you assume people should have been able to see it coming in time to react way ahead to time.

[abom2]

valhalla360 wrote:

abom2 wrote:
An old saying For those who have made accusatory speculation/insinuation: "The guilty dog barks first."

If we are going to talk platitudes, "luck favors the well prepared."

And so I was. I travel for work now. I moved here because that is where the majority of refineries and work are. Plan A- Wife and MIL travel to west of San Antonio. Look at historic hurricane paths and mountains in Mexico.

Our main rule is we leave if hurricane is greater than Cat 2.

Unable to use Plan A- MIL medical condition does not allow travel. Just going to see doctor 10 miles away is now an all day affair and she is in bed for two days after.

Plan B is supposed to be for Cat 2 storms and lower.
Shelter in place. Food/water for up to 45 days. Yep always in place. I can produce 20 gallons of potable water a day if stores run low.

Fuel storage is limited though. 60 gallons gas, 100 gallons of diesel, 42 gal of LP.
Gen sets for each fuel type.

Window a/c augmented with a fan in the sleeping and bathing quarters. Yes we did not take vacations. We spent money on the supplies and equipment.

I selected our home based on personal knowledge of the area. I grew up here and filled in the blank spaces with news archives, geodesic data, etc.

Area selected meant a 50+ mile one way commute.

We were unable to purchase flood insurance. All information showed that I was well above 100 yr event. As it was, we were blessed in that a majority of us in our neighborhood did not flood. Even our streets were clear. This has not been the case for my neighbors three streets away. 3-5 ft of water in their homes. None of these homes flooded in Allison I, Allison II, Ike, etc.

None of us could purchase flood insurance. It is not offered. It doesn't matter for me because I stand on my own and pay my way. We don't have much, but it is ours.

I have always been blessed with being able to provide for my family. It may not be new, or the latest and greatest, but nobody did without the necessities. I was able to send the children to college and it made for very tight money situations. I went on the road for work to ensure wife and family had what was needed and their education.

I will never be able to retire but I will make out. Why do I know this? Because I plan and prepare to the best of my abilities.

[toedtoes]

kzspree320 wrote:
There is too much misinformation in this thread for me to comment much without writing a novel. I live right outside Baton Rouge and was evacuated during the August 2016 floods when about 75,000 homes flooded due to flooding that has been described as 500 and 1,000 year flooding. Here is a little insight from someone that has been there and done that. My house had 37" of water in it, and the costs to rebuild were about half the costs to construct a new house.

The Louisiana Commissioner of Insurance estimated that only 12 percent of houses flooded had flood insurance. Flood insurance is required to buy a house in a flood zone with a mortgage. What does that tell you? Most of these homes were not in a flood zone and the land they were sitting on had never seen flood water in over a hundred years.

Why are all the RVs unmoved. Mine was in storage about 2 miles from my house and was never moved. From the time we saw water in our street until we were rescued in a pontoon boat was about an hour. By the time we saw water, water was too deep on escape routes to safely leave and the police had them blocked. Were we warned this was likely in our area, or were we under an evacuation order? No and No. When we called 911 for a rescue did anyone answer, NO. The truth of the matter is that most rescues happened exactly like ours. We were trying 911 to no avail, looking out for boats and saw a pontoon boat coming our way. Just ordinary people with boats willing to take a risk to help others. As the wife and I got off the boat with only our little dog and one bag each, we did thank the people with the boat. I only wish I knew there name so I could thank them properly, but during our time on the boat there were over 20 people rescued and no time for talking. In a massive disaster, there is little time and an RV never crosses your mind when lives are at risk. In a happy note, my RV happened to be stored on what was a small island with water all the way around it and was not damaged. Pure luck.

Some selected inaccuracies in this thread:
1) You have to be in a flood zone to buy flood insurance. FALSE. I know many outside the flood zone that have flood insurance.
2) It will take years of wrangling with the flood insurance to get your money. FALSE. I and most of my neighbors had the check for flood insurance, made payable to both us/them and any mortgage company, within about 45 to 75 days. Getting your funds from the mortgage company was more of a challenge for most than the flood insurance.
3) Many people let the RVs flood for the insurance money. FALSE. We lost both of our vehicles located in our garage due to flooding. You only get fair market value (blue book value) from insurance. They could have probably sold for about the same. You will not get significantly more from insurance than selling. If you owe more than the RV is worth, which often happens, the bank ends up with the check (payable to owner and lender) and you still have a balance on the loan to deal with.

Life is starting to return to normal after a very hard year. It's real easy to sit in a chair and play Monday morning quarterback in retrospect, but disasters usually happen fast and with little warning. No one really thought a river that is normally only 30 YARDS wide, and was only 3-4 MILES wide during previous record flooding, would end up over 15 MILES wide. For information I am normally 8 miles from the river and no land within miles of me had ever been touched by this river until last year.

If all 300+ million Americans are only to locate on land which is not subject to any natural disasters, including floods, wildfires, tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanos, etc, then we will all need to learn to live in high rises hundreds of miles from any coast.

Does not sound like much of a life to me. Sorry to be long winded.

You have provided some very good information. I am very sorry that you were faced with all that, but am happy that you are getting back on track.

I cannot for my life understand blaming the victims of such events. They've (you've) been through enough he!! without that.

[toedtoes]

valhalla360 wrote:

toedtoes wrote:

mike-s wrote:

toedtoes wrote:
Look back at Katrina and you'll see that a lot of the problems were due to the failure of the infrastructure.

The Katrina flooding was the federal government's fault. The proximate cause was bad levees. The root cause was not letting the Mississippi follow its natural course, which would be to let it flow out the Atchafalaya. Explanation.

Just wait until nature wins, and the Old River Control Structure fails. That will be a (preventable) catastrophe.

Yes. The infrastructure was messed up. They put levees where they shouldn't be and they let those levees rot. That was the proplem.

Bigger question is why isn't the cost of building and maintaining the levies directly charged to the property owners living in the area protected by the levies?

If you want to build/buy below sea level, good for you but when it fails, you should be the one who pays for it.

This would discourage people from building in silly location or they would do it right to cover the risks.

There are a lot of other uses for that land that is protected by levies. Business operations, public parks, etc. Roads that allow people to move through that area. Agricultural use. And so on.

Levies aren't just to protect homeowners. Many people throughout the region benefit from the infrastructure. For example, the levy that protects me also protects government buildings, commercial businesses, road access to our downtown region (the only direct access from the neighborhoods north of the downtown), the light rail system, railroad tracks, and agricultural land.

Everyone in the region benefits from those. Forcing only the immediate homeowners to pay for the levy that provides access to the downtown for people up to 60 miles away is unfair. Those people benefit just as much from that levy as I do. And how about all the businesses that use the railroad to transport their goods - without the levy, it would take much longer to go around that entire area.

[kzspree320]

There is too much misinformation in this thread for me to comment much without writing a novel. I live right outside Baton Rouge and was evacuated during the August 2016 floods when about 75,000 homes flooded due to flooding that has been described as 500 and 1,000 year flooding. Here is a little insight from someone that has been there and done that. My house had 37" of water in it, and the costs to rebuild were about half the costs to construct a new house.

The Louisiana Commissioner of Insurance estimated that only 12 percent of houses flooded had flood insurance. Flood insurance is required to buy a house in a flood zone with a mortgage. What does that tell you? Most of these homes were not in a flood zone and the land they were sitting on had never seen flood water in over a hundred years.

Why are all the RVs unmoved. Mine was in storage about 2 miles from my house and was never moved. From the time we saw water in our street until we were rescued in a pontoon boat was about an hour. By the time we saw water, water was too deep on escape routes to safely leave and the police had them blocked. Were we warned this was likely in our area, or were we under an evacuation order? No and No. When we called 911 for a rescue did anyone answer, NO. The truth of the matter is that most rescues happened exactly like ours. We were trying 911 to no avail, looking out for boats and saw a pontoon boat coming our way. Just ordinary people with boats willing to take a risk to help others. As the wife and I got off the boat with only our little dog and one bag each, we did thank the people with the boat. I only wish I knew there name so I could thank them properly, but during our time on the boat there were over 20 people rescued and no time for talking. In a massive disaster, there is little time and an RV never crosses your mind when lives are at risk. In a happy note, my RV happened to be stored on what was a small island with water all the way around it and was not damaged. Pure luck.

Some selected inaccuracies in this thread:
1) You have to be in a flood zone to buy flood insurance. FALSE. I know many outside the flood zone that have flood insurance.
2) It will take years of wrangling with the flood insurance to get your money. FALSE. I and most of my neighbors had the check for flood insurance, made payable to both us/them and any mortgage company, within about 45 to 75 days. Getting your funds from the mortgage company was more of a challenge for most than the flood insurance.
3) Many people let the RVs flood for the insurance money. FALSE. We lost both of our vehicles located in our garage due to flooding. You only get fair market value (blue book value) from insurance. They could have probably sold for about the same. You will not get significantly more from insurance than selling. If you owe more than the RV is worth, which often happens, the bank ends up with the check (payable to owner and lender) and you still have a balance on the loan to deal with.

Life is starting to return to normal after a very hard year. It's real easy to sit in a chair and play Monday morning quarterback in retrospect, but disasters usually happen fast and with little warning. No one really thought a river that is normally only 30 YARDS wide, and was only 3-4 MILES wide during previous record flooding, would end up over 15 MILES wide. For information I am normally 8 miles from the river and no land within miles of me had ever been touched by this river until last year.

If all 300+ million Americans are only to locate on land which is not subject to any natural disasters, including floods, wildfires, tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanos, etc, then we will all need to learn to live in high rises hundreds of miles from any coast.

Does not sound like much of a life to me. Sorry to be long winded.

[westend]

IIRC, the Feds had a push after some of the river flooding a few years back, to get houses away from flood zones. They didn't want to pay out continually for those properties that were flooded frequently.

[valhalla360]

toedtoes wrote:

mike-s wrote:

toedtoes wrote:
Look back at Katrina and you'll see that a lot of the problems were due to the failure of the infrastructure.

The Katrina flooding was the federal government's fault. The proximate cause was bad levees. The root cause was not letting the Mississippi follow its natural course, which would be to let it flow out the Atchafalaya. Explanation.

Just wait until nature wins, and the Old River Control Structure fails. That will be a (preventable) catastrophe.

Yes. The infrastructure was messed up. They put levees where they shouldn't be and they let those levees rot. That was the proplem.

Bigger question is why isn't the cost of building and maintaining the levies directly charged to the property owners living in the area protected by the levies?

If you want to build/buy below sea level, good for you but when it fails, you should be the one who pays for it.

This would discourage people from building in silly location or they would do it right to cover the risks.