You Just Dodged a Hurricane Now What Will You Do?

Here’s a question that is important for anyone living in a home in an area where natural disasters can occur. Do you understand the risks you face, and have you done something to improve your chances of surviving the disaster? 

In my Tell Us How to Make It Better podcast this week I interviewed former FEMA Administrator Brock Long. One of the things he said is that people don’t really understand the risks of what they are buying and where that home is located. “We're blindly buying homes without understanding the hazards that are associated with the geographical location of our dwellings and how to be properly prepared. The other aspect of this is that hurricanes are defined by wind intensity and not by storm surge threat. And so, a lot of people will think, well, I've bought a house, it can withstand the winds, but they're not thinking about whether or not it's properly elevated or where it is along the storm surge vulnerable areas so there's a lot of education when it comes to buying a home and preparing for it.”

For the people that do understand the risk, to them, it’s a risk worth taking so they roll the dice and hope it doesn’t happen. But when you get a bad roll and the storm finds you, Long says it’s a life-altering gamble that you may never recover from, “there was a research study done by the Urban Institute, I think the title is Adding Insult to Injury. If you lose your home and you’re underinsured, you're going to spiral outta control in a negative direction financially for probably the remainder of your life.” 

I encourage you to listen to the entire interview with Brock Long. Here’s the link. He has some important information we all need to consider. There is a cost that comes with living in paradise, when you see places like Sanibel Island or Fort Myers beach wiped out from Hurricane Ian, it makes you wonder if the cost is too high.