COLUMN: JOE ROSSI: Flood risk awareness is critical in our new world
Floods are the most common natural disaster in
Now, with the COVID-19 outbreak the world faces an unprecedented threat to human health and safety. COVID-19, like any disaster, also threatens our economic well-being, as unemployment soars and an effective vaccine could be months, even years away. As a result, people who live in flood-prone areas must now consider the very real possibility of facing multiple and concurrent disasters.
In
April, a difficult month for many in 2020, has long been known as Financial Literacy Month, which stresses the importance of financial resilience in the face of adversity. If a natural disaster does hit, it is critically important to ensure we have the financial resources to weather and fully recover from such an event.
With many of us quarantined at home, we have a unique opportunity to review our insurance coverages, particularly home and flood. Many remain unaware that their homeowners' policy does not contain flood coverage. For those impacted by flood who do not have flood insurance, there are some limited federal resources available. For example, SBA loans and Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) dollars become available when there is a presidentially declared disaster. More recently, the 203K loan program, which is a home renovation loan, has been used as a tool to perform mitigation activities such as elevating a home. Traditional lending is also available, and traditional loan to value ratios can determine its availability to an individual. A last resort would be to wait for individual assistance after a disaster from FEMA. But following Hurricane Harvey, that assistance averaged only about
Overall risk awareness and disaster prevention are paramount during this time. Just because we socially distance from each other, it does not mean that floods and other natural disasters will "distance" as well. Understanding evacuation routes, having a personal emergency kits, and knowing which disasters are most likely to strike are simple things that help lessen a disasters impact. Looking around your home and, for example, moving valuables out of the basement to prevent flood damage or securing outdoor items that can turn into projectiles and debris, can lessen damage. Making sure our basement sump pumps work and having backups and directing drainage away from our homes lessens the chance of a flood claim.
In an effort to keep our nation insured for floods, in March the NFIP announced that a flood policy with an expiration date between
We need to maintain our physical and emotional health during these unprecedented times, but we also need to maintain our awareness that floods and other disasters still happen. The inevitability of concurrent disasters throughout the
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