Hurricane Hell J. Ross Quigley CEO Medipac International Inc. Insurance The only words that come to mind are the famous Marlon Brando lines from the movie Apocalypse Now – “The Horror, the Horror.” My wife and I have been blessed, as snowbirds, for 30 plus years. No storms, no hurricanes, no fires and no crime. We always seemed to escape the brutal world out there. Oh, a shingle would blow off now and again, and a little water would get into the basement, but nothing that we could not easily fix and handle ourselves. Then we had a visit from Helene, soon to be followed by Milton. Two desperate, back-toback hurricanes in September and October of this year. Milton was the strongest cyclone worldwide in 2024; it hit Tampa Bay head on and centred on Siesta Key. Perhaps you have seen footage of the area on TV – things look a little different now. Our place is on Manasota Key, part of the old Florida with overhanging trees and lush vegetation, almost a jungle. No more! Every flower (several wild orchids), every palm tree, our beach decks, our stairs to the main house, our pool equipment, several heat pumps, a generator and a wine cooler containing my favourite wines all just disappeared. Where are they?? Oh, and all the walls on the main floor are gone, too. My guess is that they were all washed out to the inland waterway about a mile away. I thought that we were safe from erosion and water. After 15 years of fighting with Sarasota County we, and several neighbours, were able to build a seven-foot seawall on the beach. It was gorgeous and did its job beautifully up to seven feet. Unfortunately, they say that the storm surge from Helene and then Milton was 18 feet “above” the seawall. We had several storm panels installed on the main floor which were to allow water in, and then out, in a storm surge. However, they were not much good when the entire concrete walls in which they were installed on the main floor “disappeared.” After speaking with several contractors, they all felt that we could salvage our snowbird home and that is the only good news in this disaster. They said that 68 inches of our topsoil and sand had been eroded by the storm surge. This undermined the house; the 12-inch concrete main floor collapsed and everything fell into the pit. And then it was all washed away by Milton. I also had two cars there – one for me and one for my wife – and they were destroyed, but they’re still there… buried in the rubble after Helene. Milton, the second storm, somehow resurrected my station wagon from the pit and installed it on the top of my little sports car. I am an insurance guy, so I had lots of insurance. I just bought the best policies they had with generous limits and very expensive premiums. A full homeowner’s policy, extra flood policies and great car insurance for the vehicles we left there for the summer. I almost felt sorry for the insurance companies. Almost. We have had four different adjusters reviewing our potential claims. Hagerty and Chubb were fantastic. They gave us cheques for the cars even before the cars were towed out of the 68-inchdeep pit. I would highly recommend them for car insurance. The flood insurance adjusters just said, “not covered.” Apparently, flood insurance does not cover anything on the main floor. What? Well, they did end up covering our four heat pumps but said that these would be subject to depreciation. I have a little surprise for them as they were brand-new and just installed. All of the furniture, tools, shelves, contents and concrete walls were denied, including all of the interior doors, floors and walls. The home insurance people just said – guess what? – “not covered.” This was a flood and we do not cover damages from a flood. Wait now, I thought we had great insurance coverage, especially for hurricanes. Apparently not. The damage to our next floor was extensive and was not flood related so a battle may be in the offing. Several of our storm shutters were ripped off of the house and our second-floor lanai was destroyed. And we are not covered? They said those familiar words: “Read and Understand Your Policy.” Familiar words, indeed. Pat, my wife, simply says, “Stop whining and get on with it!” She ends up doing most of the work with the dozens of contractors and handles more than a dozen calls a day. Thank you! It will be many, many months before we can live there again, so our snowbirding days this year will be limited. But there are thousands of snowbirds in far worse situations than ours and our hearts go out to them. Our friends and neighbours in the South need our help more than ever. Please do what you can to help them through these challenging times and support the small businesses that are still struggling to survive. 12 | www.snowbirds.org
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MzMzNzMx