So, on one hand you can spend $1900/year for an event which isn’t likely to occur, in an area where flooding isn’t likely to occur, or you can live in a flood plain where flood insurance isn’t available at all. It would seem that insurance companies exist to collect money and extend the middle finger when you have a loss.
Well, duh! 
Wd: The article implied that other people in the area had flood insurance, which would seem to state that the person in question was being cavalier about insuring her business and then expecting the Government to bail her out.
I think it’s kind of harsh to characterize someone seeking help to deal with a once-in-a-lifetime major catastrophic event as on a par with folks wanting the government to ensure that “nothing bad ever happens, crabgrass doesn’t grow on our lawn, our cars never get bumped in the parking lot”.
Many people who are admirably self-reliant in their everyday lives nonetheless believe that helping citizens recover from major natural disasters is one of the proper functions of government. That’s why we have things like FEMA.
In any case, the subject of the OP’s rant, as far as I could tell, was not that the government wasn’t compensating everybody lavishly enough but that the flood victims’ elected official was being an insensitive dickhead about whether or not they deserved his compassion.
Wd: * and if, God forbid, someone is ever offened about something, even the stupidest, most niggardly thing*
Hmmm, most of the people who don’t know what the word “niggardly” means have a different mistaken interpretation of it. It means “grudging or miserly”, not, as you seem to think, “trivial or unimportant”.
Admirably stated, but that’s just something I disagree with. I don’t think you’re “wrong” if you do believe it, that’s what’s wonderful about our system. I think I’m probably in a minority about what the scope of government should be.
FWIW, I live less than 100’ from Chartiers Creek (pronunced “crick” as God intended). Luckily, I have a little vertical distance, too. Didn’t stop me from bugging out when they told us to evacuate that Friday. I have insurance, but I’m not sure if it covers floods. I had no damage at all, but if I did, I sure wouldn’t expect you to pay for it.
I have nothing but compassion for those who suffered damage, and gladly donate to relief charities. I feel that that should be my choice, though.
I contacted these folks and they indicate that they underwrite flood insurance for all businesses, flood plain or not.
- Rick
From what I can tell from FEMA’s site, in a high-risk zone such as Washington Avenue in Carnegie, the premium for minimum coverage on building and contents on a one-story, no basement structure is over $1700/year. That’s a lot of money for a mom-and-pop business, and I suspect that the rates really climb when you factor in a basement. And most buildings in the area have basements.
I guess it’s just the cost of doing business, and I guess it’s just another nail in the coffin of small businesses.
Mr. Moto, I don’t normally call Senator Santorum by a scatological nickname. I used to call him Senator Anti-Environment or Senator Creationism, but since he said that he considers George W. Bush to be the first Catholic president, I mostly call him Senator Moron.
d’oh!
I just now figured out what Guin meant.
I thought she was just being creative.
Sometimes it takes a while…
Perhaps the *reason * the extra amount is small is that you don’t live in a flood plain? Perhaps a flood would be a never-in-a-lifetime event for you, and you’re pissing money away?
I live on top of a hill. If my house floods, I won’t need insurance anyway, I’ll need an ark.
We have some people who say insurance is available, and we have someone who actually sells insurance saying it may well not be available. Then there is the high price tag for protection for something that may never happen - especially if you aren’t on the flood plain - if it is available. Some places do allow what is call “redlining”, in wich companies can pick and choose which neighborhoods will not be offered coverage, or where the cost will be jacked up.
Then we have Santorum pretty much telling his own constituents he doesn’t care what happens to them either way, and “hinting” that they are cheap, lazy and stupid. He could at least have pretended to have some sympathy for people whose homes and businesses had been wiped out. Put me down on the side that says Santorum is an arrogant, stupid asshole. Add his past record of speaking out his ass, and the condemnation of the poster who used to work for him, and it only strenghtens my opinion.
Maybe. But given the huge amount of damage that would ensue in the however-unlikely event, I sleep sounder pissing my money away.
And this is my point. You gamble. If you lose the gamble, why should tax dollars rescue you? I have $x less per year to spend on DVDs or Disney vacations because I have flood insurance. Someone else has the benefot of those dollars and nicer DVDs and vacation pictures than I do. The downside for him is the risk that his DVDs will be waterlogged someday.
Question… if the Senator “you” elect to prepresent you then tells you to bugger off, don’t you have a reason to be angry? If you pay taxes and see other states getting disaster money and you don’t, can’t you wonder what is going on? When you see tax money in the billions spent to the “HalliBushCo” for a new Vietnam war and you are told to piss off, doesn’t it upset you just a little?
The US government was created “for the people”, not for the corporation. It was meant to do certain things “for the common good”. We had a little earthquake out here in Northridge. Know what happened? A lot of people who HAD earthquake insurance got fucked. Oh sorry customers, we just can’t afford to pay out, it would break us. Or, so you lost your home. Here’s a FEW thousand (no where near enough to start over). Or, the roof is gone, you gotta pour a new foundation, but it’s only COSMETIC and we don’t have to pay up. Or we can’t sell you fire insurance cuz fires happen here. Or “We don’t cover ACTS OF GOD”.
Let’s see how smug and arrogant you are if/when something happens to you. I almost hope it does (almost).
Final note … If the government doesn’t do anything For The People, what are any of us paying taxes for? We can keep all that money and use it for our own individual personal protection. For me, that would be about 30-40K a year in my pocket.
So, Bricker, let me ask you again how much you pay for earthquake insurance because for some folks the odds of being flooded were about the same as them being in an earthquake. One place which was badly damaged has been in business for over 100 years. This is the first time they’ve been flooded.
Please, try to understand this was not some routine spring or fall flood. A friend of mine was stranded downtown for several hours because busses stopped running. Other businesses in downtown closed early. Children were stranded at schools because the roads to their homes were flooded; other people fetched up at shopping centers for the same reason. The route my boss took to get home was about three times as long as his usual route because he had to keep detouring around flooded areas. We got hit by a combination of half as much rainfall as the old record falling on ground which was saturated from the rain which set the old record less than two weeks earlier. We had record amounts of rainfall and nowhere for it to go.
Look, I’ll raise an eyebrow as high as anyone at people who build in a floodplain and get wiped out by flooding every other spring. I admit that Pittsburghers tend to be stubborn types who tend to stay put, but I’d get tired of the same old creek or river coming into my basement every spring. The people who were hit by this flooding weren’t such people. Santorum’s attitude toward them is the sort of callous arrogance I’ve come to expect from him.
CJ
Uhmm, make that more than half again as much rainfall. The old record, set by Hurricane Charley was 3.6 inches in 24 hours; Hurricane Ivan, which caused this flooding, gave us 6 inches in 24 hours. At least with Charley, the ground could absorb some of the water.
Do you understand that we’re mainly talking about small businesses where a couple of hundred extra dollars going out each month is very often enough to mean that the owner doesn’t get to draw a paycheck one week? And working class neighborhoods where DVDs and Disney vacations aren’t in the budget at all? Do you think that if people had been given an opportunity to buy flood insurance, or a reason to think that they needed flood insurance, and they could afford it, they’d have it just like they carry full coverage on their five year old cars because they need those cars to get to and from work?
Look, I sympathize. I really do.
But disasters happen all of the time. And we really cannot make everything as it was for everybody before the disaster. It would bankrupt the treasury, and cause every single insurance company to go under.
That is why there are things called deductables. That is why there are premiums, set so that people limit their coverage based on what they can afford. That is why there are limits on the aid the federal government can provide. And yes, you should be buying your own insurance, and not relying on federal aid.
I grew up near Pittsburgh, so don’t think I say this without full knowlege of the real consequences of natural disasters. I’ve lived through some floods myself, and I’ve been to towns a week after they’ve been hit by devastating tornadoes.
There’s only so much that can be done. Santorum should have said it more tactfully, but he is right.
Then you agree something can be done, as opposed to nothing. That would make Santorum wrong.
Why don’t we look at what he actually said. From KDKA:
Puts a different spin on things, doesn’t it? He mirrors the sensible things all of us have been saying.
I still have a hard time understanding how a extremely unlikely event would result in a very expensive insurance premium.
I feel bad for these folks, and I personally know people who have had their homes destroyed from this flooding.
But, I don’t understand what point the posters here are trying to make by saying that “It never floods in these areas, this is a once in a lifetime disaster”. The frequency of a tornado/flood/earthqauke/godzilla rampage has no bearing on the situation.
If it can be shown that people tried to get insurance and were unable to, then there is a problem, and my stance would certainly change. But for people who either declined flood insurance or who failed to seek out flood insurance when it WAS available – To be blunt, it isn’t my problem. It’s theirs.
I would gladly donate to charity efforts to help these people but forcing taxpayers to help these people is not right.
My personal stance: if you’re struck by a natural disaster that a reasonable man might not have conceived it necessary to plan for, then you’re deserving of help – private, governmental, whatever. If you’re willfully courting danger (e.g., building in a flood plain, or on the slopes of an active volcano), then it’s your problem.
One or two people were struck by meteorites (well, technically they were meteors until they impacted the people) during the 20th Century. But I’ll venture to guess that not one reader of this thread has taken out meteorite insurance.
There was a man in eastern North Carolina who built his home on a rise, being aware of the danger of flooding in the flatlands around. He was washed out by Floyd – he was 12 feet above stream level, and the streams rose to 17-18 feet above normal. Was he planning poorly – or was he struck by a natural disaster of a magnitude he quite reasonably hadn’t anticipated?