[LittleOldLady]

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sorry about your house. out where i live some people every year lose all their possessions to fire. they get no relief from fema or rent subsity or help from charities. only friends and relatives and they have to start all over. life can be cruel.
if you paid for that coverage you are entitled to it right now. hope it works out for you, its good to vent but dont let bitterness ruin a positive future.

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Ray, this is a whole lot worse than losing a house to fire, because in a fire the insurance comes out and pays you your policy limits, you truck away the debris, and you rebuild. We are sitting with rotting, contaminated houses which are (inadequately) insured by the federal flood insurance program which had a very low cap as to how much insurance one can carry no matter the value of the house. We do not know whether we will be permitted to repair or whether we must bulldoze and rebuild, and in either case, most houses will need to comply with a new code regarding elevation among other things, and we don't know what that code will be. Further, unlike a fire, the entire infrastructure of the city has been destroyed. Large areas of the city have no electricity or gas, and the entire city is without phone service. The mail is sporadic to non-existent. Most of the city has no open stores, gas stations, etc. There is no trauma center. A few private schools are open, but there are no public schools. Eighty per cent of the city is covered in contaminated mud, and the houses are filled with mold and mildew and dangerous to enter. There are four-story high mountains of debris on the neutral grounds stretching for blocks. The city streets are lined with dead refrigerators filled with stinking rotten food, each one of which has to have the refrigerant removed before it can be dumped. Looters are going from house to house stealing whatever has been salvaged because all of the houses are open, and there is inadequate police protection. Since I am within one block of the London Avenue Canal, I am concerned that my property will be seized by eminent domain, and I will get next to nothing for it. There is also a plan being floated to give the city usufruct over the destroyed houses. This means that the city will rebuild the houses, rent them for several years to whomever they please, and after the rental period, the owner will either have to pay the city the cost of repairs/rebuilding or lose ownership of the property which will be sold to whomever, and the proceeds used to reimburse the city with anything leftover going to the owner. This looks to me like a pretty nefarious plot to seize property without paying fair market value (whatever that might be under the circumstances).

Ray, I would be sooooo happy if my house had burned down. I was completely insured against fire, and by now the debris would have been cleared, and a contractor would be building a new house on my lot. I would buy new furniture, and I would be made whole. However,under the current circumstances I will never be made whole, and I am sitting here in Vegas trying to get the damned insurance people to answer their phones or return my calls and worrying what I will be allowed to do with the rotting hulk that used to be a very nice 4 bedroom house in a beautiful, tree-shaded neighborhood. And of course at the moment there is no levee protection against future flooding, so anything rebuilt now is vulnerable.

Well, FEMA did call me today to see if I wanted to live in a trailer. No thanks. What I am getting from FEMA is not relief. I have to deal with FEMA because FEMA is the sole source of flood insurance in this country. The rent subsidies are in lieu of alternate living expenses which are not included in flood policies although my homeowners' policy would provide up to two years of money for temporary housing in the event of fire. I have not gotten one penny from the Red Cross or any other private charity. The Red Cross has been running those horrid shelters and giving out mops and brooms. Those who made their own housing arrangements are not being helped by the Red Cross. BTW the Red Cross and other private charities do help burned-out families meet their immediate needs. I am sure they do this in Montana as well as elsewhere. I did the responsible thing and paid through the nose for insurance, which has so far done me no good at all.