Storm Losses Could Reach $100 Billion

[Amelia]

Storm Losses Could Reach $100 Billion

Insurance will cover a fraction of what may be the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.

By Kathy M. Kristof

LA Times Staff Writer

4 Sept 2005

Economic losses from Hurricane Katrina are likely to reach $100 billion, an insurance consulting firm estimated Friday, which would make it the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.

Insurance will cover only a fraction of the losses, according to Risk Management Solutions of Newark, Calif. It estimated insured losses at $20 billion to $35 billion, up from initial projections of $10 billion to $25 billion.

The price tag from Hurricane Katrina is expected to far exceed that of 1992's Hurricane Andrew, which caused $43 billion in economic losses and $20.8 billion in insured losses, in inflation-adjusted dollars.

The consulting firm said initial Katrina damage estimates failed to fully account for broken levees that turned much of New Orleans into a lake. An estimated 150,000 properties were submerged, surpassing the toll from a 1927 flood on the lower Mississippi that swamped 127,000 homes and businesses.

"The 2005 Great New Orleans Flood has developed into the most damaging flood in U.S. history," the consulting firm, which provides risk management data for 400 companies, said in a statement. "The insufficient level of flood protection offered by the city's levees has been exacerbated by shortcomings in preparedness."

Insurance companies cautioned that damage estimates are still largely guesswork because they have not yet been able to enter flooded areas.

"We have 1,600 adjusters in the affected area," said Allstate Insurance Co. spokesman Rich Halberg, "but there are about 500 waiting in Baton Rouge for clearance to go into the New Orleans area."

State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., which is the largest insurer in both Mississippi and Louisiana, also said it could not provide a preliminary estimate, even though it had taken 76,000 claims.

"We are dealing with so many unknowns right now," said Pete Moraga, a spokesman for the Insurance Information Network. "We don't even know when the infrastructure is going to be repaired so that we can get in there and assess the damage."

Two German reinsurance companies (firms that essentially insure other insurance companies) did project losses Friday. Hanover Re estimated $311 million in claims and Munich Re estimated $502 million.

When it comes to losses, time is of the essence, insurance experts said. The longer that structures remain underwater, the more damage that's done. Water damage is particularly tricky, Moraga said, because even structures that appear to be salvageable may develop mold later.

Fitch Ratings Service, a New York firm that provides investment ratings for investors, predicted that Katrina would represent the largest insured property loss in U.S. history, surpassing Hurricane Andrew and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Total insured losses from 9/11, however, are higher — $30 billion and counting — because they include workers' compensation and life insurance claims. Insurers are not yet able to estimate those kinds of losses from Katrina.

The insured loss estimates also do not include damage from flooding. Private flood insurance is rare, with almost all coverage provided through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA officials estimated that 4 in every 10 homeowners had federal flood insurance.

Property owners without flood insurance might try to recoup damages by saying the storm — and not the flood — caused their losses, said Robert Reigel, managing director at Moody's Investors Service. That could mean lengthy battles ahead with insurers, he said.

Commercial insurers that cover business interruptions and environmental claims are likely to ultimately produce substantial claims as well, Reigel said.

[Paul Beach]

The ugly truth

NY Daily News - Errol Louis

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/343324p-292991c.html

Why we couldn’t save the people of New Orleans

Scene outside the Convention Center after spending four days in squalor after Hurricane Katrina.

Bubbling up from the flood that destroyed New Orleans are images, beamed around the world, of America's original and continuing sin: the shabby, contemptuous treatment this country metes out, decade after decade, to poor people in general and the descendants of African slaves in particular. The world sees New Orleans burning and dying today, but the televised anarchy - the shooting and looting, needless deaths, helpless rage and maddening governmental incompetence - was centuries in the making.

To the casual viewer, the situation is an incomprehensible mess that raises questions about the intelligence, sanity and moral worth of those trapped in the city. Why didn't those people evacuate before the hurricane? Why don't they just walk out of town now? And why should anyone care about people who are stealing and fighting the police?

That hard, unsympathetic view is the traditional American response to the poverty, ignorance and rage that afflict many of us whose great-great-grandparents once made up the captive African slave labor pool. In far too many cities, including New Orleans, the marching orders on the front lines of American race relations are to control and contain the very poor in ghettos as cheaply as possible; ignore them completely if possible; and call in the troops if the brutes get out of line.

By almost every statistical measure, New Orleans is a bad place to be poor. Half the city's households make less than $28,000 a year, and 28% of the population lives in poverty.

In the late 1990s, the state's school systems ranked dead last in the nation in the number of computers per student (1 per 88), and Louisiana has the nation's second-highest percentage of adults who never finished high school. By the state's own measure, 47% of the public schools in New Orleans rank as "academically unacceptable."

And Louisiana is the only one of the 50 states where the state legislature doesn't allocate money to pay for the legal defense of indigent defendants. The Associated Press reported this year that it's not unusual for poor people charged with crimes to stay in jail for nine months before getting a lawyer appointed.

These government failures are not merely a matter of incompetence. Louisiana and New Orleans have a long, well-known reputation for corruption: as former congressman Billy Tauzin once put it, "half of Louisiana is under water and the other half is under indictment."

That's putting it mildly. Adjusted for population size, the state ranks third in the number of elected officials convicted of crimes (Mississippi is No. 1). Recent scandals include the conviction of 14 state judges and an FBI raid on the business and personal files of a Louisiana congressman.

In 1991, a notoriously corrupt Democrat named Edwin Edwards ran for governor against Republican David Duke, a former head of the Ku Klux Klan. Edwards, whose winning campaign included bumper stickers saying "Elect the Crook," is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence for taking bribes from casino owners. Duke recently completed his own prison term for tax fraud.

The rot included the New Orleans Police Department, which in the 1990s had the dubious distinction of being the nation's most corrupt police force and the least effective: the city had the highest murder rate in America. More than 50 officers were eventually convicted of crimes including murder, rape and robbery; two are currently on Death Row.

The decision to subject an entire population to poverty, ignorance, injustice and government corruption as a way of life has its ugly moments, as the world is now seeing. New Orleans officials issued an almost cynical evacuation order in a city where they know full well that thousands have no car, no money for airfare or an interstate bus, no credit cards for hotels, and therefore no way to leave town before the deadly storm and flood arrived.

The authorities provided no transportation out of the danger zone, apparently figuring the neglected thousands would somehow weather the storm in their uninsured, low-lying shacks and public housing projects. The poor were expected to remain invisible at the bottom of the pecking order and somehow weather the storm.

But the flood confounded the plan, and the world began to see a tide of human misery rising from the water - ragged, sick, desperate and disorderly. Some foraged for food, some took advantage of the chaos to commit crimes. All in all, they acted exactly the way you could predict people would act who have been locked up in a ghetto for generations.

The world also saw the breezy indifference with which government officials treated these tens of thousands of sick and dying citizens, even as the scope of the disaster became clear. President Bush initially shunned the Gulf Coast and headed to political fund-raisers in the West.

That left matters in the bumbling hands of the director of emergency management, Michael Brown, who ranks No. 1 on the list of officials who ought to be fired when the crisis has passed. Even as local officials were publicly reporting assaults, fires and bedlam at local hospitals, Brown took to the airwaves to declare that "things are going well" as mayhem engulfed the city. When asked about the rising death toll, Brown attributed it to "people who did not heed the advance warnings." Brown's smug ignorance of the conditions of the place he was tasked to save became the final door slammed on the trap that tens of thousands of the city's poorest found themselves.

The challenge for America is to remember the faces of the evacuees who will surely be ushered back into a black hole of public indifference as soon as the White House and local officials can manage it. While pledging ourselves to remember their mistreatment and fight for their cause, we should also be sure to cast a searching, skeptical eye on the money that Bush has pledged for rebuilding.

Ten billion dollars are about to pass into the sticky hands of politicians in the No. 1 and No. 3 most corrupt states in America. Worried about looting? You ain't seen nothing yet.

Originally published on September 4, 2005

[Paula]

Amen!

[Naomi]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr />

Margaret Gray said:

The ugly truth

.................

That left matters in the bumbling hands of the director of emergency management, Michael Brown, who ranks No. 1 on the list of officials who ought to be fired when the crisis has passed. ............

The challenge for America is to remember the faces of the evacuees who will surely be ushered back into a black hole of public indifference as soon as the White House and local officials can manage it. While pledging ourselves to remember their mistreatment and fight for their cause, we should also be sure to cast a searching, skeptical eye on the money that Bush has pledged for rebuilding.

Ten billion dollars are about to pass into the sticky hands of politicians in the No. 1 and No. 3 most corrupt states in America. Worried about looting? You ain't seen nothing yet.

Originally published on September 4, 2005

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

Mrs. Gray,

That says it all!

Naomi

[Dr. Shane]

Over $400 million has been spent over the past 10 years on the levees around New Orleans. What have the tax-payers gotten for that money? The local polititions have been claiming they needed about $250 million. It makes one wonder.

[Robert]

• Rev 13:11 Then I saw another beast, coming out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon.

"Like a lamb"...but in reality a dragon!

Recently I have come to view this passage as saying America was never Christ like...it only appeared "lamb like"....In reality the dragon [satan] has set forth his principle. When this nation is fully exposed [through the preaching of the gospel] then it will turn self-righteous...real fast!

For 200 years this so-called righteous nation practiced slavery. Now it permits abortion because babies cost money...and money is the god of the super-power. If the life of your own unborn gets in the way of your goals of making the big bucks...kill it. And we call this a Christian nation!?!

Whatever happened to the principle that "All men are created equal...." Of course if you were black when this nation practiced slavery, well, some how you weren't created in God's image. Money/profits were the reason for slavery....Now it’s a host of other evils....

The issues then are the same as when the USA practiced slavery....Profits...money, money, and money. Who needs to worry about overhead when your employees work for free under the compulsion of death. Like I said for 200 years both the North and South practiced this evil. Why?

The principle of this nation has always been based on "self-seeking." Whose law is that...God's? No...Lucifer's! He invented the principle of self.... Capitalism is based on selfishness. This naturally creates "special interests groups" with the poor getting the raw end. This hurricane has exposed America's hypocrisy.

God's kingdom is based on sharing....It is Biblical communism without compulsion. In the early church all believers had everything in common....There was no rich and no poor. They all shared everything....There was no self until the Capitalists Ananias and Sapphira appeared on the scene.

I am in no way taking up for Communism as we see it in China, Russia and other governments. I am just pointing out that Capitalism is not some "Lamb like" characteristic that comes from God.... Quite the opposite, it comes from "the god of this world." Who are we kidding?

:2cents:

[Robert]

America will turn against God's church when,

1] She preaches the gospel....Not only does the gospel show the love of God, it exposes our self-love...our coveting.

2] The result of preaching the gospel will develop a people who are reflecting the principle of God's law [selfless agape love]. Since God's principles are against this nation's principles...this nation will turn on God's people.

Why? Money, which = power!

• 2 Tim 3:1 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.

  2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money,

  boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—

  5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.

:2cents:

[cricket]

Well, now, if Bill Gates would keep just $15 Billion to himself and donate the rest, at least a fourth of these losses could be paid for!