Letters From the Katrina Zone

Almost every day I am reading letters like the one below from homeowners who faithfully followed the guidelines of their insurance companies, paid their insurance premiums, who now find themselves homeless and with no idea how to rebuild their lives.

These folks weren't stupid, or negligent in how they thought they were protecting themselves; many were told they didn't need flood insurance or that their insurance company could not underwrite a flood policy for them. Many homes were well above the flood levels noted, and some even over a mile inland.

Now not only are the insurance companies telling them they won't be paying for any damage caused by flooding, the homeowners still have mortgages that are not due to be paid off for many years. They have no home to live in, and either have to come up with the finances to rebuild, relocate, or rent. Oh yeah, many are without income right now, too.

Read this letter and see if you can keep from feeling the frustration this woman and her family must be feeling right now:

I am glad to see that Sens. Thad Cochran and Trent Lott got a $5 million grant from the Department of Labor to train workers, and the cities are receiving grants to rebuild. But what about the citizens of the Coast? What good are job training and public buildings if we can't rebuild our homes?

I thought that I had protected myself every way that I needed to with my insurance. I always made sure that I had guaranteed replacement cost and I had a "hurricane deductible," not a separate "wind and hail" policy. I was not in a flood zone, so it never was an issue. For many people, because of these same reasons and the limited number of policies available to the agents, they were not allowed to purchase flood insurance.

My home of 26 years was 16.8 feet above sea level, 1.5 miles inland from the water, yet I had eight feet of water in my house!

Where is our help? Some people I know who did not even try to protect themselves - and I mean by not paying for any kind of insurance coverage - have already received $26,000 from FEMA. Something is seriously wrong with this picture. I lost everything I worked and paid for, as did many, many other people.

Where is the help for those citizens who did pay their insurance premiums for all these years and now have nothing? I understand that Sen. Lott has introduced a companion flood-insurance bill to the one introduced by Rep. Gene Taylor, and Sen. Cochran has listened to the idea, but as of today, we have seen no results.

I am willing to buy retroactively into the national flood insurance program, or compromise with the insurance company, just give us enough to put our lives back together. The cost to help us is far, far less than what our nation spends helping other countries.
xxxx xxxx
Waveland