OPINION: Editor's opinion: So, you think you're prepared for a hurricane?

Sep. 13--opinion

This year's hurricane season is delivering on predictions it would be more active than most.

Terrebone and Lafourche are now threatened by Tropical Storm Sally, the earliest storm with a name starting with "S." Already, the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico have seen 19 named storms combined since the season started June 1. After the next three -- Teddy, Vicky and Wilfred -- forecasters will resort to naming storms by letters of the Greek alphabet.

Despite the ominous forecasts as the six-month season started June 1, it's clear -- as always -- that many coastal residents remain unprepared.

In April, a poll by the nonprofit Federal Alliance for Safe Homes did turn up some good news. The number of coastal residents who said they intended to prepare for hurricane season rose by seven percentage points, from 59% last year to 52% in 2020. The bad news is 41% did not plan to prepare.

Those kinds of poll results have been the norm over the years. Despite living six months of every year -- half a lifetime for permanent coastal residents -- many fail to prepare.

Among the most notable, and potentially disastrous, evidence locally is the percentage of residents who lack flood insurance. Almost every single home in Terrebonne and Lafourche is at risk of flooding from storm surge, heavy rain or both. Nonetheless, federal figures have shown that in recent years, roughly 30% of local home owners fail to insure their houses.

That might be OK if you're wealthy enough to shell out the entire cost of clearing the rubble and replacing your house. But most of us aren't in a financial position to insure ourselves.

A couple of years ago, the last time I analyzed the numbers, the two parishes had about twice as many homes at risk of storm surge as houses with flood insurance. That left about 35,000 owners at risk of losing their homes without insurance to help pay for repairs or a complete rebuild.

I'm confident the numbers haven't changed significantly, especially since the area has since managed, luckily, to avoid a major hurricane that might jolt homeowners out of complacency.

The consequences remain the same too. Those who mistakenly believe FEMA, the state or divine intervention will bail them out are in for a costly disappointment.

"Data shows a significant portion of homeowners may be banking on federal flood relief they'll never receive," the financial website ValuePenguin said in a June 2018 report.

"The maximum direct assistance FEMA will pay is $33,000, which sounds like a lot of money, but not if you have a significant flooding event," Michael Barry of the Insurance Information Institute told ValuePenguin. "And while the maximum claim amount is $33,000, the average payout is closer to $10,000."

Compare that to the average flood insurance claim in 2016 -- $62,247.

"What ends up happening for most of those uninsured losses is that people get loans at a below-market interest rate," Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon told The Courier and Daily Comet in a story about the same issue in 2017. "That, in effect, sucks all the equity out of their homes. For a typical family, their biggest investment or asset is their home."

The average flood insurance policy now costs about $700 a year in Terrebonne and Lafourche, according to FEMA data, though the actual figure depends on lots of factors, including the home's size, age, location and how likely it is to flood. The median home's value, meanwhile, is around $148,000 in both parishes.

Sure, some people can't afford to buy flood insurance, but far more people can't afford not to. Either way, it's hard to argue that someone who could lose his or her home to flooding with no way to pay for repairs or rebuilding is really prepared for hurricane season.

-- Executive Editor Keith Magill can be reached at 857-2201 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @CourierEditor.

___

(c)2020 The Houma Courier, La.

Visit The Houma Courier, La. at www.houmatoday.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.