Shocking drone video shows storm destruction along Volusia County coastline

[Brenda]

Their headline, but I can't say it's shocking to anyone paying attention.

Hurricane Nicole was only a Cat 1.

https://www.wesh.com/article/drone-video-volusia-county-nicole/41927108

[malaise]

1. Get thee to the greatest page

for visibility

[TheBlackAdder]

42. Wow! It says something about having concrete storm walls. The metal ones just broke apart.

[brush]

2. Billions in damages...some luxury beach houses teetering...

on falling into the sea. Some even have. Wow! even the undamaged or minimally damaged ones have lost tremendous value. Who would buy them?

I amazes me that people in hurricane country keep building or rebuilding on beaches.

[malaise]

3. THIS

Remember now Nicole was a Cat1

[brush]

6. Yes, and it did that much damage.

[genxlib]

16. It did

But this was an accumulation from Ian and Nicole.

There was already a lot of damage in the area that made it vulnerable to further damage from Nicole

[Better Days Ahoy]

5. No sympathy, empathy or anypathy

Don't build on the water in the Banana Republic of Florida. I don't care how much $$$ you have. The private insurance market is leaving Florida, increasingly more intense and later-season storms will destroy your homes, and the state will not bale you out.

Trending predicts the expansion of the US hurricane season to begin before June 1 and possibly keep going past November as the South Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico stay warmer longer.

Weather doesn't follow the calendar. And weather don't play.

[malaise]

9. Not true

November 30 is the end of hurricane season. June 1 - November 30.
What is true is that this is only the 3rd November hurricane to hit Florida since records were kept.

[Better Days Ahoy]

11. Ah, that's right! I've been out of the Commercial underwriting world for too long

And forgot one of the basics.
And to think I used to reel off the insuring agreements, all of the causes of loss, additional coverages, and exclusions for all three types of Property policies.
AND recite the major hurricanes and dates from 1960 on.

It's what we did. I'll correct my post.

[malaise]

13. I only remember because I live in the Atlantic hurricane

region - we were taught the hurricane poem as kids

[panader0]

14. What is the hurricane poem?

[malaise]

21. Well the poem actually vindicates Better Days Ahoy😀

We were taught that the season is June 1 to November 30 but the poem actually says October

The hurricane season runs from 1 June to 30 November , though November is not included in the old mariner’s rhyme — perhaps an indication of how seasons have shifted over the years:
June too soon
July stand by
August come it must
September remember
October all over . . .

https://www.caribbean-beat.com/issue-49/june-too-soon#ixzz7kLJCweHZ

[panader0]

22. thanks

[Better Days Ahoy]

24. I started my underwriting career in New Orleans. Yeah.

The city where little kids get hurricane tracking maps with their Whopper Juniors during hurricane season.
And our office's file clerk (this was the '80s) taught me about hurricane meteorology by drawing high and low pressure systems on the back of a notepad.

[malaise]

25. And yes the old mariners poem does say October

See with this old lady

[Better Days Ahoy]

35. I think we're both cool for even having this nerdy chat

about 'canes. Cheers to you from this 62-year-old.
And I have my own small biz now: Seasonings, cocoas, salts and teas -- making myself and others happy post-corporate.

[malaise]

36. LOL- now that is cool

Do you know that the best cocoa in the world is found in Trinidad & Tobago.

[Better Days Ahoy]

37. Great! Let's go!

After hurricane season.

[malaise]

38. Ha😀

Not heading that way for now 😀

[modrepub]

10. I Guess There Are 3 Strategies

to building in areas prone to storms/flooding et cetera.

1). Build robust fortified structures (at great cost).
2). Build cheap ass structures (or even portable structures to get the hell out when the time comes) and write off the loss.
3). Never build there in the first place.

I ranked them in order I think most would choose.

IMO, the solution is for folks to allow the (private) insurance market to make the decisions. If no one is willing to insure the area because costs would be prohibitive, I think either 2 or 3 will happen. If insurance costs reflect the actual risk, then either 1 or 2 will happen.

Government backed insurance or subsidized insurance means the market can't correct the situation and we get lots of people building where its not safe and all of us pay for these mistakes. And FL's insurance market is way bad from what I understand. If DeSantis is the R candidate, the high insurance rates and out right thievery occurring in FL should be pinned on his ass.

[Better Days Ahoy]

27. Yes, private insurance is fed up.

But it's not easy to pull out of a state entirely, especially for Personal Auto and especially such a large state. Plus, many residents are insured for Auto elsewhere as part-time residents.

You basically carve out Property into a separate company with its P&L and share of the involuntary/assigned risk market. Then if you exit the Florida Property insurance market altogether, you take just that single line company and keep the rest of your business -- if you want it -- in Floriduh.

[malaise]

4. Four dead, 49 properties deemed unsafe including four

hotels. This was much worse than expected

[Better Days Ahoy]

7. That's the point, isn't it? It will only get worse

That's the weather trend we're in.
More frequent, later and later in the season, more intense.
Welcome to hell in paradise.
We are idiots.

[Deminpenn]

12. No sympathy

As a taxpayer, I'm tired of footing the bill for federal tax dollars going to FL to bail out their stupidity.
It's only a matter of time before a cat 4 or 5 goes right up the center of FL and wipes out the entire state.

[Blues Heron]

15. Ian did a lot of that - Nicole finished what Ian began

Ian was of course a high end 4. but had already traversed the state. Nicole was a landfalling cat 1

[Bristlecone]

17. Interesting that the homes with fortified sea walls or rip rap

Were the survivors…mostly.

Florida is going to have to seawall or move inland. They are on frontlines of climate change and I don’t feel they will lead the charge on sounding the alarm.

[hunter]

20. Sea walls and rip rap are temporary solutions.

What's worse, they concentrate the ocean's energy on less affluent neighbors, making things worse for them, as well as being ugly.

Like it or not, we have to figure out how to relocate entire communities to safer ground. Otherwise we'll just have to live with the chaos.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

29. See the Netherlands.

[hunter]

31. Netherlands is a first world nation.

The same can't be said of Florida.

The people in Nederland talk openly of the €100 billion they're likely to spend this century resisting rising sea levels.

What's Ron Desantis talking about?

[Hermit-The-Prog]

32. Good point.

[Bristlecone]

33. My first thought was "I'll bet those walls cost a ton"

My second thought was, “those that didn’t have them probably did not due to the cost.” Firstly at least.

Some may not have for aesthetic reasons. But I’d guess it was mostly the $.

[onethatcares]

18. look at how narrow the strip of land is

between the Atlantic and the Intercoastal Waterway. and it's developed to the hilt while the two waterbodies will keep trying to join.

How the hell does that mass of wood/appliances/furniture even get cleaned up?

[mn9driver]

19. Looks like every property with a sea wall failure was destroyed.

Since all those houses appear to have been built on slabs I guess that is no surprise. Strange that people who could afford those properties in the first place wouldn’t spend the additional $$ to protect them with sea walls that could withstand a cat 1.

[malaise]

23. Lots more here

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/hurricane-nicole-makes-landfall-florida-rcna56522

[wishstar]

26. Sea level there has risen 1 foot in past century with most of that just in last 30 years

so that has a lot to do with the destruction according to a news article I saw yesterday.

[drmeow]

28. I don't care how many billions of dollars

of damage there was. That's an effing meaningless number. I want to know how many people were displaced from their only home and how many people don't have any options. I do not give a f**k if some billionaire's $1,000,000 house was destroyed but I do care if 10 family's $100,000 homes were destroyed!

[treestar]

39. At that link there is another video from

New Smyrna beach. The owners actually blame the county for not getting a sea wall in between Ian and Nicole! The county could not fix everything from the first hurricane before the second hit soon after.

Sounded super entitled for people who can afford the beachfront house in the first place.

[drmeow]

43. Socialism for the "worthy"

but not for the "unworthy" - with skin color and money being the top "worthiness" criteria!

[Stinky The Clown]

30. How many have insurance premiums higher than the mortgage?

[Xolodno]

34. Probably quite a few.

If I remember correctly, the Citizens Property Insurance Corporation has a 90%+ market share for named perils due to wind. If their homes are destroyed by storm surge, then they also need another policy from the Federal Flood Insurance program. So that's already two hefty insurance bills before you even get to the Difference In Conditions policy (the one that covers, fire, theft, liability, etc.).

By way of comparison, the California FAIR Plan Association has only a 5% market share (wild fire insurance). And their premiums are pretty steep (i.e. 5k a year for a 300k home). I have to imagine, that their state program is pretty on premiums and after getting hit by two hurricanes in a year, everyone in that state with that plan are going to see a huge rate increase.

[Ahpook]

40. That's my old stomping grounds

I lived about a half mile south of that area on beachside. One of those destroyed houses shown was a house a good friend lived in when they moved to the States from England. Unreal!

Can't say I ever saw any damage like that the whole time I lived there. Wow

[Ilsa]

41. I think rebuilding on site is crazy.

Why wait for your next, new home and possessions to be ruined or destroyed?