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The FL Panhandle Has Been Forgotten


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I didn't need the WaPo to tell me this, but it is a good view of what's happened (and not) here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/survivors-of-hurricane-michael-in-the-florida-panhandle-fear-they-have-been-forgotten/2019/04/05/793ab5ce-563b-11e9-8ef3-fbd41a2ce4d5_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a4034c6bb8be

Please excuse the point by point style here. I am too angry to do my usual elegant paragraph construction:

1. FEMA did not do enough for citizens

2. The local governments did not cooperate well about siting FEMA trailers.

3. At the same time FEMA trailers were needed here, FEMA was selling unused ones in Texas.

4. Working-class people can't find affordable housing here.Just like New Orleans after Katrina/Rita, rents have doubled or tripled.

5. Many of the small businesses in the strip malls found out their landlords' insurance is not going to help them, so they are history.

6. Despite some big speeches from the politicians, the Air Force is pondering whether it can afford to rebuild Tyndall AFB (in the eastern part of the county) as well as Offut in Nebraska which was damaged by recent floods.

7. Some insurance companies have not been very helpful. However, some people with claims are getting suckered in by contingency fee lawyers (who now are all "disaster experts") and suing. Then they realize that the insurance company is not going to give them any money while the case is in litigation. 

8. Some wealthy (?) people near me with waterfront property now understand the costs of elevating their houses and bringing everything up to code. So, some are walking away from their homes.

9. In my very middle-class neighborhood, many houses still have blue tarps on roofs, some with serious damage have not been touched, only now (6 months and counting) are the destroyed houses getting demolished. 

My friends outside the area agree the news cycle has moved on and since the area does not have the unique identify of New Orleans (my adopted hometown) the media is unlikely to re-engage unless it is starved for other things to report.

Pax...

 

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=== over the Holidays we drove the length of the Panhandle to New Orleans. While 10W was certainly open there was much evidence of downed trees, by the dozens. There appeared to be areas work being done with small front loaders and the like. We were well away from “neighborhoods” but easy to see the monumental task still ahead — 

Edit - and let me add when F5 tornados leave smaller Kansas communities completely flattened, their recoveries fare no better, if not worse. “Fly over country” is generally not a top priority - 

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12 hours ago, CECAA850 said:

This is nothing new.  There were blue roofs here after Rita for WELL over a year and that was in '05.  Look at New Orleans as well.

True over 13 years ago and there are still blue tarps on some roof and some just left to rot. Many just left or walked away, others chose to rebuild but still hundreds of abandoned properties.

 

You can try to blame it on your least favorite politician if you like but this has been going on long enough that every variety got a chance. Nothing new here, it's just the way it is.

 

You also have to consider in some cases it's not the government's problem, some want/expect them to pay to rebuild even when they didn't bother to buy insurance themselves. 

 

Then there is mismanagement and fraud, kind of like Puerto Rico. A son in law was sent there to work cleanup, the locals and their politicians complained they needed water, but he said the airport had so much bottled water that was flown in and just sat, the local politician lady running things and doing press conferences said it was not the local people's jobs to distribute water, trucks should be sent with people to do that. I guess they were not that thirsty? It turned out the company he worked for pulled out saying it was not worth it, either politicians wanted to extort money or locals did, they were threatened and after a while did not feel safe, so they left. 

 

I know the way politics makes some think, it's convenient and makes you feel better thinking "your" person would do better, believe that if it helps. 

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On 4/8/2019 at 8:11 AM, CECAA850 said:

This is nothing new.  There were blue roofs here after Rita for WELL over a year and that was in '05.  Look at New Orleans as well.

 

And Corpus Christi, Port Aransas, Aransas Pass and especially Rock Port, Texas.

 

I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you.

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I remember when Hurricane Irma slammed into Savannah, Georgia in 2017. My aunt's house took a hit and by the time she called for repairs to her roof she was told that there were over 50,000 repair orders on the books in the city and surrounding area already. Sometimes the scale of the damage needs to be put in perspective. From what I saw from news reports it looked like some areas of the Panhandle were scrubbed right down to the sand.

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1 hour ago, RT FAN said:

From what I saw from news reports it looked like some areas of the Panhandle were scrubbed right down to the sand.

It is a strange thing to see, nothing but cement slabs and trees with no leaves left on them for miles, the wind does not do this kind of damage, storm surge, and waves on top of that.

 

1 hour ago, RT FAN said:

I remember when Hurricane Irma slammed into Savannah, Georgia in 2017. My aunt's house took a hit and by the time she called for repairs to her roof she was told that there were over 50,000 repair orders on the books in the city and surrounding area already.

The worker shortage is just part of it, for a year or more after you had to order almost everything, need a bathroom fixture like a toilet or sink you had to wait, most all appliances. Building supplies were no better, shingles, plywood, drywall almost everything couldn't be shipped in fast enough to keep up with demand. It's how they ended up with Chinese drywall and other things that caused serious problems later. The Chinese drywall had something in it that corroded any metal within a few feet of it over time, then it had to be redone including metal pipes and some electrical. So these lucky people got to rebuild all over again.

This is also not counting all the crooked contractors from here and out of state that took advantage of people by doing terrible work or none at all and taking the money. There is still an occasional news story about another contractor being found and prosecuted.  

 

I would guess this is just not here but anywhere that is affected. 

 

This is what a house (my mothers) looks like after NO wind or wave damage, just 10' of water for over 2 weeks before receding, this was before the mold really started, it got much worse.

colter_06-59.JPG

colter_06-53.JPG

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2 hours ago, Zen Traveler said:

I agree and have also stopped trying to engage because  the thread gets locked when folks realize who is responsible for things not getting done.

Threads get locked because people try to interject politics, not for what people realize.

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2 minutes ago, CECAA850 said:

Just keep the red and blue out of it.

I will try but when you make statements like this:

On ‎4‎/‎8‎/‎2019 at 8:11 AM, CECAA850 said:

This is nothing new.  There were blue roofs here after Rita for WELL over a year and that was in '05.  Look at New Orleans as well.

I have the urge to point out what is similar and can't without casting blame to who is responsible.  IOW, it's not a "red/blue" thing as much as in both cases we can point to who our elected representatives are/were and unfortunately they belong to one of those two factions. 

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