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« Original Intent | Main | Home improvement amid economic hardships »

Crying won’t help you, Praying won’t do you no good

And so it happens again.

Gulfport [Illinois] was protected by a levee rated to withstand a 100-year flood. Although it wasn't designed to protect the town from a flood on the scale of last week's, it was enough protection that the Federal Emergency Management Agency did not require business or homeowners to purchase flood insurance.

Only 28 of the town's 200 residents had federal flood insurance. The rest trusted that the levees would hold. Residents Rick and Gina Gerstel, who lost everything, say no one from their bank to the municipal or federal governments ever told them they were at risk and ought to buy flood insurance.

Should the municipal or federal governments have to tell you whether or not you need insurance for this or that? Well, at first glance, no, you should be an adult and be responsible for your own well being. But of course if residents were actually misled about the dangers, that would be a different story. After all, who maintains the levees, thereby taking on responsibility for their structural soundness?

But the government didn’t say that residents were completely protected. Just to withstand a 100-year flood. And unless I miss my mark, that means that the danger of flooding was known ahead of time. I would have had insurance. (I know, easy for me to say from the high ground. Then again, I didn’t purchase a house in the flood plain to begin with.)

According to the article, Senator Chris Dodd “supports legislation that would require anyone living in an area protected by a levee to have flood insurance.”

The libertarian gut instinct is to tell Senator Dodd where he can stick his legislation requiring citizens to purchase insurance.

The savvy libertarian will note that the article says “have flood insurance”, not “purchase flood insurance.” That’s alarming, although the negative reaction to Dodd’s proposal seems to be predicated entirely on the notion that the insurance would be purchased by individuals. “Rates for the insurance would be set by a federal administrator.” Of course.

The pragmatic libertarian will suggest that since we already have the FEMA National Flood Insurance Program, and we don’t have any chance of doing away with it anywhere soon, we may as well tighten up the requirements for people to get federal dollars just for living in a flood plain. If you look closely, Senator Dodd’s plan would not actually require anybody to purchase flood insurance. But those who didn’t purchase insurance would be ineligible for the NFIP assistance. That doesn’t sound nearly as objectionable to the pragmatic libertarian.

The researched libertarian will look up some facts on the NFIP and figure out that when the President declares a disaster and property owners become eligible for NFIP funds, they get a low interest loan. If the property is considered to be in a high risk flood zone, the owners are already required to purchase flood insurance before they can pay back the federal loan. That insurance requirement stays with the house apparently everafter, even if the house is sold.

In other words, I don’t see how this proposal by Senator Dodd would actually help anybody much, except that NFIP has an upper limit of $250,000 for the house and $100,000 for what's inside it. And it doesn’t make him look good with his base, does it? Will Democrats in Connecticut (which can also flood) be impressed by this? I don’t get it.

Posted by Wulf on July 1, 2008 at 09:44 PM

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Comments

I don't have flood insurance.

If I lost everything, I would definitely attempt to blame anyone but myself if I thought I could get everything back. I admit it. I'm a ninja.

After reading this blog however, I feel like I should buy flood insurance. Even though my neighborhood has never flooded. I mean... I'm kind of a gambler, so chances are I'll probably wake up tomorrow and feel safe and NOT go out and buy flood insurance. But I should. I _really_ should.

I agree with Wulf here. If you don't buy flood insurance, you're the only person to blame if your shit gets flooded.

Not the government. Not the Governor. Not FEMA. Not Obama. Not God. Ok... maybe God.

Sure, I might try and blame someone else... and if I get away with it, yay me. But I would know, deep down, that its... wait for it... nobody's fault but mine.

Posted by: Buckshot at July 1, 2008 11:01 PM

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