You had to go and remind the rest of us . . . .

 

Yeah, it's depressing.

But it leads to the interesting notion of nationwide disaster insurance. Here in FL (and probably along the Gulf and southern Atlantic Coasts, too), windstorm insurance is way expensive, because (for us at least) it's outside the actuarial pool of the rest of the US.

But hurricanes aren't the only potentially catastrophic event. Others happen all over the country -- earthquakes, wildfires, blizzards, tornadoes, and on and on.

If the concept of the national flood insurance were extended to cover all of these, then people everywhere would have some coverage against these natural hazards. It's been proposed in Congress but has yet to get traction. One problem, of course, would be the new bureaucracy that would spring up to administer it. But at least it would pull everyone into the "we're all in this together" mode. HPH

 

Just like healthcare, eh

 

Wondering how our Texas Jim is doing. Hope electricity is back and storm damage is getting underway.

 

His storm damage is definitely underway, and has been. Cleaning it up is probably what's been occupying him, now that his TV doesn't work.

Word seems to be that things are progressing slowly, in general. That was the case here after Wilma as well -- we were fortunate, as our subdivision, with buried utility lines, is right next to a substation, so the power came back in about 60 hours. For some, though, it took 3 weeks. Yuck.

And then there's the gasoline problem. I bet that stations in Texas begin to invest in generators, like they have here. HPH

 

Interesting article about those folks whose homes were just "too close" to the ocean.

Hundreds of people whose beachfront homes were wrecked by Hurricane Ike may be barred from rebuilding under a little-noticed Texas law. And even those whose houses were spared could end up seeing them condemned by the state.

No rebuilding?

 

Our power in Bellaire was restored yesterday, so we are passing the generator on to people without juice. Pool is now clean, and all the debris has been collected and hauled away. We were much more fortunate than many.

So as of this morning I'm hanging out in Colorado. Tara (terrier) is with me and we are getting organized. Have to go in to the grocery store to get supplies. Tara loves it out here -- she's out chasing the deer right now.

 

 

Although we are at 65' above sea level we often have a high water level. After having our basement flood three times we now have two sump pumps capable of moving 3000 gph. But they are no good without power which happens regularly, especially in a storm. So twenty years ago I installed a natural gas powered 5 kW generator with an automatic transfer switch. When the power drops out it starts within a few seconds.

It energizes only a few circuits: those with refrigerators and freezers, the gas furnace and some circuits in the kitchen.

A few winters ago we had an ice storm and the power was out for almost two days, but we were warm and cozy in our house.

The price of these generators has come down significantly, so if we were to do this today we would probably get a 10-12 kW unit that would power our entire house, including the a/c.

We do have a service contract that runs about $900/year to insure reliability. The generator also is automatically exercised once a week for 20 minutes.

If I lived in an area with a high probability of extended power outages I would get one of these.

 

I never worry about affronting the brain dead.