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I live in Oceanside, had no flood insurance and took on six feet of water inside my house and lost three cars. I was home at the time.
my house never had a drop of water since day it was built in 1955 and house never had a flood policy since 1955
I have new cars, new oil tank, new oil burner, new electrical, new bathroom, new den, new laundry room, new oven, new dishwasher and still have to resheet rock garage and porch area.
Damage was 50K, got around 31,900 from FEMA paid for rest out of pocket took out flood insurance and moved on.
Flood insurance is only $390 a year. I never had it as never thought I needed it. Now since whole lower half of house is brand new I will keep it.
Big deal. I am over, it. I like the town, schools are good. Next flood now that I have insurance I will just evacuate and that is that.
BTW my house is much better post sandy. I had a 55 year old burner, a 1960s bathroom and a 1970s den that was ruined. Oil tank was 60 years old I replaced and all instlation and sheet rock is new. I even added a sump pump, raised oil tank and raised oil burner. Also mold proof sheet rock and tiled floors.
If anything my house should be worth more post sandy. The flood risk pre and post sandy are identical. If you are getting money off go for it. Just make sure you get a house with low flood insurance. Dont buy zone AE costal.
Also a house like mine that did not have flood is a good buy in the sense I never had a insurance flood claim. I get a low rate and I get no threat of raising house as I never had a claim.
I am not worried at all. Oceanside is a great town, this is a great buying opportunity. In fact I bought a place down in Long beach a few weeks ago as a summer bungalow and I got it at a great price.
You say "Dont buy in FEMA AE" - - and then you bought something in Long Beach? FEMA "GROUND ZERO"....... say what?????
Why is that peculiar?
After all, this is the internet.
I just bought a little summer mansion on Dune Road myself. I can only go out to it once a year, but what the heck, I figured I'd treat myself anyway. It's just nice knowing it's there. Worry about a FEMA zone? Surely you jest!
That has been predicted in general because of global warming. I know some people refuse to believe in it though. I do because it is a fact that icecaps and glaciers are melting at an alarming and accelerating rate.
As for Sandy itself, it is true that a lot of weird occurrences had to come together at the exact right times to make that storm, so I believe Sandy itself was more of an outlier than a model of the type of storms to come around here.
As for living where it floods, no thank you ESPECIALLY if your home is not waterfront. Why take the chance when you can't even see the water/get real estate value from being on the water? I'd only risk it if I was waterfront and had a boat. Which I am not interested in because we had boats growing up and the parents made us kids the "labor" for them so I know exactly what they entail ... too much work; I am too old/lazy now!
Great point on the boat/waterfront.
Climate change may have an impact on storms down the road. Although there is no conclusive evidence that this has happened so far with the sea level rise over the last 50 years. I think the noaa predicted something like 2%-11% stronger storms by the end of the century...trivial really. The way some of the doomsdayers make it sound is they will be exponentially stronger now. It's really all random.
Quote:
Originally Posted by twingles
yes...I can see where I said I thought LI would be wiped out for good...did they put drama pills in the LI aquifier?
Tornadoes are a completely different weather system than hurricanes and they don't forever change coastlines and dunes and inlets to make subsequent storms worse in their impact. Its a pretty sure bet that when the next
system strikes Li....especially if it is soon...and especially if it is direct....it will be worse than Sandy.
I just think you're overstating the whole thing. I mean, the next one worse than Sandy?? Regarding flooding? I will take the other side of that sure bet.
And regarding when next one will hit, who knows... Could be 1 year, could be 25. I'd be more worried about a surprise F5 tornado ripping through your town.
Do you warn the NC board over-and-over when tornado season nears?
You can't mitigate tornado risk by buying in a certain area of a state or even county. Wake Forest or Fuqua Varina? Can't predict where one might go. Lindenhurst where it just flooded with Sandy or Plainview? Pretty easy bet IMHO.
At any rate, with 25 years between the last two major tornadoes, and HO insurance covering those losses 100%( ie no specialized insurance [FLOOD] needed), I'm just playin' the Long Island odds, like any good Island native.
Believe it or not people fear hurricanes more than tornadoes here. When a system is developing in the gulf, people absoultey flip out. Days when we are under tornado warning are business as usual. It's kind of odd if you ask me!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pequaman
Great point on the boat/waterfront.
Climate change may have an impact on storms down the road. Although there is no conclusive evidence that this has happened so far with the sea level rise over the last 50 years. I think the noaa predicted something like 2%-11% stronger storms by the end of the century...trivial really.
I just think you're overstating the whole thing. I mean, the next one worse than Sandy?? Regarding flooding? I will take the other side of that sure bet.
And regarding when next one will hit, who knows... Could be 1 year, could be 25. I'd be more worried about a surprise F5 tornado ripping through your town.
Do you warn the NC board over-and-over when tornado season nears?
You can't mitigate tornado risk by buying in a certain area of a state or even county. Wake Forest or Fuqua Varina? Can't predict where one might go. Lindenhurst where it just flooded with Sandy or Plainview? Pretty easy bet IMHO.
At any rate, with 25 years between the last two major tornadoes, and HO insurance covering those losses 100%( ie no specialized insurance [FLOOD] needed), I'm just playin' the Long Island odds, like any good Island native.
Believe it or not people fear hurricanes more than tornadoes here. When a system is developing in the gulf, people absoultey flip out. Days when we are under tornado warning are business as usual. It's kind of odd if you ask me!
That is odd. Although maybe hurricanes are more powerful down there than anything we've seen up here.
That's good that HO covers 100% tornadoes. However, it would still be a terrible experience losing your home and having to rebuild from scratch. Plus, premiums would probably jump afterward.
I think the real question with buying waterfront or close to the water these days is all about money really --and commitment. Do you have the money to cover the rising insurance premiums and potentially layout if flooding does occur again beyond what Flood Ins would cover? Do you love living on the water, boating, etc enough where a major storm might make your home much harder to sell in the future...
You can't mitigate tornado risk by buying in a certain area of a state or even county. Wake Forest or Fuqua Varina? Can't predict where one might go. Lindenhurst where it just flooded with Sandy or Plainview? Pretty easy bet IMHO.
At any rate, with 25 years between the last two major tornadoes, and HO insurance covering those losses 100%( ie no specialized insurance [FLOOD] needed), I'm just playin' the Long Island odds, like any good Island native.
Believe it or not people fear hurricanes more than tornadoes here. When a system is developing in the gulf, people absoultey flip out. Days when we are under tornado warning are business as usual. It's kind of odd if you ask me!
You know, I just thought of something else with the Plainview/Lindy comparison... How would you compare the natural disaster risks where you are now compared to your old stomping ground in Garden City?
I think there is a much higher risk where you are now of getting wiped out from a hurricane or tornado. NC is #4 I believe in states most likely to receive direct hits from a major hurricane. Plus you have the added risk of tornadoes and the likelihood of much stronger hurricanes.
LI/NY is much lower in hurricane direct hit risk w/practically 0% chance of tornadoes. How much is your hurricane deductible?
#1 - this was true for those who stayed far away from their homes and were unable to travel back to their homes within 1-3 days after Sandy struck to check the house. My husband was fortunate enough to be staying w/ family only 1/2 mile away and walked back to the house the day after Sandy to find the generator and turn it on. He would have stayed during Sandy but didn't want to risk losing his car.
# 2 - not all basements are going to encounter flooding each time it rains. Thats what sump pumps are for. It also depends on how high the house sits. Our neighbors 3 doors down live right ON the canal and are living in trailers right now because there is noplace for the water to go when it rises up that fast. Another house next door to them however, is elevated 5 feet above ground and didn't have any water on their first floor. The ONLY time our basement flooded was after Irene and Sandy due to power loss. Without power, the sump pumps can't function. We now have backup battery powered sump pumps so even if we get a massive storm next time where LIPA shuts off power, we can still get the sump pumps working off the battery.
If my husband had stuck around the house for all of Sandy, I think our damage would have been much, much less. This Irene and Sandy storms, in my mind, were the "100 year storms" forecasters predicted. For all we know, a cat 5 storm can come by this August and wipe out every house south of Sunrise Highway - so no matter where you live, you really aren't safe because we are all living on a giant Island. You can't live life in constant fear..remember how the Upper half of Manhattan was completely without power for a good 2 weeks after Sandy? Imagine being w/o power on the 68th floor of a high-rise.
It is impossible for a Category 5 storm to hit Long Island. The North Atlantic does not get warm enough. This August is way too early to raise the "category 5 is coming!" alarm. However, I will concede that maybe we can worry about it in our graves in 100,000 years when global warming takes its toll.
No hurricane deductibles here. Strange eh? But believe it or not, Brooklyn doesn't have hurricane deductibles either. Does that make ANY sense at all?! I'm 200 miles from the coast - if you are talking about the Outer Banks or the Wilmington area, I'm sure they have a huge chance of getting "wiped out" I hardly think they are talking about the entire state with that stat. Those places may have hurricane deductibles. They are recommended to buy earthquake insurance as well. Yes, really!
We are about 200 miles from the coast, so any hurricane that came up here would have been downgraded to a tropical storm. Even Fran, the mention of which makes people here knock on wood, didn't really do a lot of damage here - it just knocked out the power for a long time (even with underground service!). When you ask people who freak out at the mention of Fran what kind of damage they had, they didn't really have any - it was a lot of clean up, and a pain to be without power for so long - but most people didn't really have any damage. A lot of my friends moved in here that winter before Fran - I asked one of my friends what kind of damage she had and she said their front door was so water logged they had to force it closed for a week. But not having power sucked.
Now as far as living in GC vs here - the biggest thing that worried me there was a huge tree in front of the house - which we tried for years to get the village to take down and caused problems with our buyers. Sandy came and went and the tree made it through - no one could believe it! But I heard from neighbors last week that the village finally took the tree down....guess they are getting nervous after Sandy and all the damage it did in town.
Tornadoes - wouldn't want to be in one, but again - there's nothing I can do here to mitigate my risk on those. I can't pick one town over another and say it makes me safer. And like the Long Islanders who will gamble that the Cat 5 storm never comes, I guess I will have to think the same way about a F5 (topography here makes that a highly unlikely scenario but you can never say never).
My biggest weather fear here is an ice storm. They are pretty prevalent here. Would not want to be powerless for a week or more in the wintertime. TO that end, trying to get things in order in case that ever happens.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pequaman
You know, I just thought of something else with the Plainview/Lindy comparison... How would you compare the natural disaster risks where you are now compared to your old stomping ground in Garden City?
I think there is a much higher risk where you are now of getting wiped out from a hurricane or tornado. NC is #4 I believe in states most likely to receive direct hits from a major hurricane. Plus you have the added risk of tornadoes and the likelihood of much stronger hurricanes.
LI/NY is much lower in hurricane direct hit risk w/practically 0% chance of tornadoes. How much is your hurricane deductible?
Now as far as living in GC vs here - the biggest thing that worried me there was a huge tree in front of the house - which we tried for years to get the village to take down and caused problems with our buyers. Sandy came and went and the tree made it through - no one could believe it! But I heard from neighbors last week that the village finally took the tree down....guess they are getting nervous after Sandy and all the damage it did in town.
...
It's only mentioned in this thread briefly, but another huge factor in a comparison to LI is the post storm impact - comparing an island to a mainland area and the access constraints to clean-up, get supplies, etc... it's very different. You have to cross a bridge to get anything, yourself included, on or off. We don't even need to go to the extreme of Sandy to disrupt the supply chain and we see how quickly grocery stores are wiped out and gas stations emptied. Look at recent snow... look at the condition of Fire Island to this day post Sandy. More people densely packed, less funds to provide services... it's just not a good formula long term.
We had to switch our Summer vacation plans this year and will be hitting the outer banks instead of renting on FI - I can't even imagine when FI may be back to 100%. There's a new breech that's being left open and although it's helping to clean up the bay nicely right now, I don't know how you can stand on previous flooding as a good indication of future issues. It's now that much easier for a storm surge to hit the south shore - like a new pipe was left open.
I suspect that this tornado season and next hurricane season will continue to open eyes... I hope to dodge it myself and hope my family / friends dodge it on LI. But to not acknowledge that things from a climate perspective are accelerating is pure folly.
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Although maybe hurricanes are more powerful down there than anything we've seen up here. 
