Katrina Town Hall Reflected Selflessness of Gulf Coast

by Ana Maria

With standing room only in the large parish hall on top of a massive bluff overlooking the Bay which feeds into the Gulf of Mexico, Gulf Coast Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS) hosted the second town hall meeting with a delegation of plenty of congressional leadership from across the country. From as far west as California to the northeast of New Hampshire, Democratic Congressional representatives gave up time with their families and their constituents to revisit the Katrina-ravaged area. We were honored to have the high-ranking leadership of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Democratic Majority Whip Jim Clyburn from South Carolina.

Taylor told the overflowing crowd of Katrina-worn constituents that the multiple peril insurance bill almost didn’t make it out of its first subcommittee hearing, but that she personally talked with the Democratic members of the committee. Speaker Pelosi told her fellow Democrats that she had come to Katrina Land last year and promised to pass this important legislation. She kept her word as good leaders do. Taylor said that Congressman Mel Watt (D-SC) worked diligently on wavering Democrats to impress upon them the horrors of an insurance apparatus that is serving Americans quite badly.

Every Democratic member voted for the bill, and it passed without a single Republican vote.

When the bill was heard before the full Finance Committee, again the bill passed with every Democratic member voting for it and a few Republicans joining the Democratic leadership. In September, the bill will be up for a full vote in the entire House of Representatives when Congress returns in September. While we can pass this with only Democratic support in the House, the truth of the matter is that this is a non-partisan bill that will protect ALL Americans subject to the wind and water ravages that Mother Nature occasionally blows our way.

She—Mother Nature, that is—never asks us whether we are Republican or Democrat before she blows off our roof. Mother Nature never asks us which religious affiliation we may be before toppling trees onto our homes and businesses. Mother Nature never asks whether we are progressive or conservative, rich or poor, of this or the other ethnic background. No ma’am and no sir. All she does is do her thing leaving the rest of it up to us.

Five panelists regaled the congressional delegation and audience with one after another nightmare of dealing with Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath. David Treutel, a third generation independent insurance agent and president of the family business and member of the Mississippi Wind Pool board of directors, spoke of the need for one policy for both wind and water. Treutel told of the despondency he saw in his clients who were exhausted from Katrina only to find themselves barraged with a claims adjuster for their cars, one for wind, one for homeowners, one for flood. Treutel recommended the bottom line for One policy. One adjuster.

Tish Haas Williams, Executive Director for the Hancock County Chamber of Commerce, spoke to the horror stories of how insurance has devastated the Coast’s (of Mississippi) ability to economically recover. She spoke of companies still paying on lost inventory that their insurance companies failed to cover even though businesses had paid insurance premiums for that purpose.

She spoke of insurance rates going up 600% and more, and how businesses cannot absorb these costs for less coverage with an ever-shrinking customer base. Of course, she reminded everyone that small business is the economic engine of the nation as well as for Hancock County.

Boy is she ever right about that.

Under President Bill Clinton, his administration expanded the number of jobs in our economy by over 20 million, primarily in the small business sector. The current guy occupying the White House is great at exporting our jobs to other countries. Maybe that’s what Bush did with his leadership responsibilities on our economic recovery here in Katrina Land. He must have outsourced them, because he and his administration have certainly turned a blind eye to the Katrina-Rita recovery needs.

Hancock Bank Chairman George Schloegel heads the largest bank in Mississippi. Joining the rest of the panelists, he also extolled the virtues of ONE policy for both wind and water. That’s right. A banker. Of course! No bank can lend money to customers to build without the accompanying insurance, which is a must. No loans, no business income. No business income, well, what’s the point?

Banks are not charities any more than grocery stores or car dealerships or the local pharmacy. Money is a prerequisite to keeping the doors open. Insurance is the prerequisite to opening the doors in the first place. That makes sense now, doesn’t it?

Mr. Schloegel brought the house down when he remarked that the insurance companies didn’t have to hire lawyers and haul us to court to get us to pay our premiums. Why should we have to hire lawyers and haul them to court to get them to pay on our wind policy claims?! Yes, as I said, this is a banker. He said that his own bank just up the road a few blocks has now been rebuilt. The insurance was astronomical and so they are going without it. However, it is but one building, and they have banks over four states or so which allows them to spread the risk throughout the company. A family has but one main asset—it’s home. They can’t afford to spread the risk. He, too, supported H.R. 3121—one policy for both wind and water and having the federal flood insurance policy expanded to cover windstorms.

Clearly the man who stole the evening’s show was Dr. McFarland. The elderly retired doctor told us that he lost his home to Katrina. Soon thereafter, he lost his job with NASA—I believe, and then the following June lost his wife. He said that he believes there is a message in everything and told God “I got the message.” We all laughed with him, perhaps, mostly because in spite of his tragedies, his sense of humor remained. Then again, so has that of the rest of the Gulf Coast area.

What I have heard, though, is that when his insurance company continued to deny payment on the wind policy, his wife ended up with a stroke and passed away. You see, the McFarland family like so many others here on the coast believe in the goodness and honesty of the people in their lives with whom they do business.

He said that the state insurance commissioner’s mediation program was a joke. Don’t do it. Hold on and hold out for everything owed. The sad irony is that Dr. McFarland was not one to go to court. In fact, he was not fond at all of folks suing. He supported what is known formally as tort
You know, curbing the ability for small potato type people like you and me to punish corporations, hospitals, doctors and the like for their negligent wrong doing.

So hiring one of the biggest lawyers around was not something uppermost in his mind. Here on the coast, just like in plenty of places across the country, most folks believe that if they themselves do right in their lives, others will do the same. Everything will work out just fine.

With this in mind, the good doctor always believed that his own insurance would, of course, pay what was owed. Nothing but a simple financial transaction. The doc paid his insurance premiums, and the insurance company would now pay on the insurance policy.

That isn’t what happened. He said that someone showed the insurance folks a picture of Parchment. For those outside of the area, Parchman is local lingo for the state prison that houses death row inmates. Here on the coast it is hot as hell in August and September. In Parchman, it’s simply hell.

Anyway, the doc said that after the folks at this insurance company, which I believe was State Farm, saw a picture of Parchman, he and the 600 other plaintiffs that were suing, got 100% settlement on their claims. Now, what I believe the doctor was referring to is the fact that his attorney, Dickey Scruggs of the Scruggs Katrina Group had filed a racketeering lawsuit against State Farm and the two engineering firms for allegedly

“conspir[ing] to cheat policyholders out of rightful payments worth millions of dollars. They willfully caused victims of Hurricane Katrina extreme emotional and financial distress in their calculated strategy to falsify and conceal evidence, intimidate anyone who got in their way, and use their privileged position to pressure policyholders into accepting pitiful payments both before and during the mediation process."

The doctor’s prescription? Stay away from Mississippi Insurance Commissioner George Dale’s mediation. Hold out for what is due. File a lawsuit if need be.

Not bad for a man previously adamantly opposed to lawsuits and lawyers protecting the little guy. As one businessman told me during the evening, he never thought he’d see the day when he’d be in a FEMA line with a bunch of rich folks. Just to be clear, however, the doctor also ended his insightful remarks with a message that all of us down here in this neck of the woods would like everyone to know. We’re not looking for a hand out. We’re just needing a hand to help us get back on our feet.

By the way, the McFarland case inspired the Rigsby sisters to blow the whistle on the insurance industry.

One last thing for today. As you may remember from my bio, I came here five months ago to surprise my family with a visit. I was the one who was surprised by the enormous devastation that remained everywhere I looked. So much needs doing right this very second. But what are the residents here pushing for most now? A single insurance policy for both wind and water that is available across the nation literally from sea to shining sea.

I have wondered of late, how this proposal will assist folks to get on their feet right now? When passed, the policy would not even be available until next June. The needs today are immense right now! What’s in it for them to be pushing a policy to help the rest of the country as well?

Last night as I was talking with my new friend Gary Anderson, the Democratic nominee for the state’s insurance commissioner, I posed the question. He said it will help in the future and help the entire country, not just here.

I thought to myself, “Are the humble, modest people that I grew up with in the place of my birth, the town where I was raised, are they really that selfless? Had my own sense of right and wrong, of social justice, of doing the right thing regardless of its difficulty come not only from my own family upbringing but also from the teeny tiny town as well?”

As if reading my mind, Gary looked down at me with that knowing smile of his and said, “Welcome home.” Isn’t that all any of us are looking for in life? A place where we feel at home?

That is the reason the H.R. 3121 is so important. When disaster strikes our homes and businesses, what we depend on for our financial security must be reliable so that we can get back to the business of our lives returning home at the end of the day to be with our families and friends.


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Horror stories told

Congress members listen to locals

By J.R. WELSH

baybureau@aol.com

BAY ST. LOUIS --Members of Congress listened Monday evening as frustrated local homeowners and business leaders lambasted the insurance industry and shared their stories of trying to recover after being denied payoffs on policies after Hurricane Katrina.

It was alternately a time of thunderous applause, laughter and near-tears as a capacity crowd filled Our Lady of the Gulf Community Center. But the message to the 10 congressional representatives invited here by U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Bay St. Louis, was direct: The Coast champions Taylor's insurance reform measure that is pending in Congress, and wants his House colleagues to champion it as well.

The unofficial delegation, made up of all Democrats, included House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, and House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-South Carolina.

It was the second trip to the Coast in a year for Pelosi, who visited last August before assuming the powerful speaker's position. "We began a conversation a year ago," she said Monday. "I'm here to continue that conversation, as speaker of the House of Representatives."

Taylor has sponsored H.R. 920, a bill that was included as a provision in another measure introduced by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California. Taylor's measure calls for multiperil insurance that would allow property owners to purchase wind and flood insurance in a single policy.

Supporters hope the bill would prevent homeowners from getting "no pay" decisions from insurance companies in the event of hurricanes or other disasters, as happened to thousands of policy holders after Katrina. The Waters bill, H.R. 3121, is being hotly contested by the insurance industry, but was passed by the House Financial Services Committee on July 26.

Congressional representatives heard from a panel whose members detailed their experiences and those of friends and neighbors. They included Wesley McFarland, a retired physician who locked horns with State Farm after the company refused to pay on the loss of his Bay St. Louis home.

After a nasty legal battle, McFarland and 600 other State Farm policy holders finally received a 100 percent settlement.

"The insurance companies have raped the people in this community," the blunt-spoken McFarland said to loud applause. "They cheated. They stole. They were crooks."

"We need seamless wind-water insurance coverage now," Tish Williams, executive director of the Hancock County Chamber of Commerce, told the congressional group. She said excessive insurance costs are stalling recovery and threatening small businesses.

Williams recently took a sampling among chamber members to track the rise in insurance costs. For one small retailer in Old Town Bay St. Louis, the annual insurance has risen to $30,000 from $8,000 before the hurricane, she said. And a real estate agent reported a 420 percent increase in insurance costs since Katrina.

George Schloegel, president and CEO of Hancock Bank, told the group that even his bank - the largest in Mississippi - is going without insurance for the reopened branch at Main Street and Beach Boulevard. "We don't have insurance because we can't buy it," he said. And two years after the hurricane, he said, "We still do not have flood maps."

Schloegel urged the Congress members to fight for Taylor's bill when they return to Washington from their August break. "The status quo of doing nothing is absolutely unacceptable," he said.
_______________

Originally published on August 14, 2007. View here.
View the Sun Herald's photo gallery of the Congressional Democrats' Katrina tour along the Gulf Coast.

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ACING THE FACTS A congressional delegation meets with Katrina survivors to find out what South Mississippi needs to speed recovery

Residents: Light a fire under FEMA
By RYAN LaFONTAINE
rlafontaine@sunherald.com

DeLisle - Speaking to a congressional delegation on Monday, education leaders in Pass Christian suggested two critical ways to help speed the Coast's recovery and to prevent similar problems after future disasters.

Congress needs to light a fire under FEMA and get behind U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor's insurance reform, the school officials told a 14-member delegation led by Taylor that included House Majority Whip James Clyburn and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

The group toured the campus of DeLisle Elementary and listened to tales of South Mississippi's uphill road to recovery. The group later visited Sally James at a FEMA trailer on Second Street in the Pass.

When Hurricane Katrina destroyed most of the district's classrooms, Pass Christian students of all ages were forced into trailers on the campus of DeLisle Elementary. The campus, in a rural part of the Pass, is hooked to a water well, unlike most schools which run on city waterlines.

The old well was too small to supply water to the new oversized population and Ron Storey, the school district's director of support services, told the members that he wrangled with FEMA for months and eventually got tired of trying.

"We still don't have a well," he said. "Do you know how much kindergartners use the bathroom?"

Storey and other school officials urged the members to push legislation that would change the way FEMA operates and who it answers to.

"There's no one (locally, at FEMA,) who can make a decision on anything," Storey said. "I've been to hundreds of FEMA meetings and have not received one answer to any of my questions at any of those meetings."

Pass Christian Schools Superintendent Sue Matheson said she struggled for weeks with the government over the delivery of the trailers, and after nearly two months, she said dropping the name of a former Pass High graduate helped speed the classrooms-on-wheels.

"You all know Robin Roberts?" Matheson asked the delegation. "I was scheduled to go on 'Good Morning America' the next day and I finally told them that I was going to have to tell the world we still don't have our trailers.

"About an hour later, he called back and said, 'Dr. Matheson, would you mind if we put lights out there? Because we'd like to get started tonight.'

After the storm, more than 85 percent of the district's faculty and students were homeless, living in trailers or with friends, and some in tents. More than 75 percent of students attend class in trailers, according to Beth John, the director of curriculum.

School officials told the delegation that the insurance debacle has prevented dozens of students' parents and teachers from rebuilding homes. Taylor said homes and businesses have not returned, which has hurt the city's taxable income and drastically reduced local school funds.

Pelosi, who called Taylor "Mr. Insurance," said the House will consider his push for all-perils legislation next month.

Clyburn said this week's visit to New Orleans and South Mississippi was to assess the needs and forge new partnerships with local officials.

"I want you all to know that our commitment to you is as genuine as anything we've ever undertaken," he said. "And we will never relent."

Original article published August 14, 2007.



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Katrina-Land: A Lesson in Crossing the Political Divide

by Ana Maria

Today is the day I’ve been looking forward to for quite sometime. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) leads a delegation to New Orleans and over to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to see the state of post-Katrina living. Last year I was living in San Jose, Calif., which is about an hour’s south of San Francisco—the district that Pelosi represents. I wasn’t here for Katrina, though plenty of my family members were. I remember when I read that Pelosi had led a delegation of Democrats to this area last year. I was thrilled!

I became happily stunned when I read that the town hall meeting was in my own hometown of Bay St. Louis, Miss. Then, I became almost speechless beaming from ear-to-ear when I realized that the Town Hall meeting was held in the parish hall of Our Lady of the Gulf Church parish hall. I had attended OLG elementary school and then Our Lady’s Academy from 7-12th grades. I felt honored though my strong separation of Church and State perspective wasn’t all that thrilled with it being held in a Catholic school setting. I have since found out that available venues are, indeed, a premium. Same goes for the one being held tonight. As this year’s delegation will find out, significant feats in recovery and rebuild are wholly absent in New Orleans and all along the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

I’m glad that I’ll attend this year. Part of the purpose of the meeting, I believe, is a follow up from last year. Speaker Pelosi had told the Gulf Coast residents that if the Democrats gained control of the House of Representatives, that she would ensure that it would provide hearings for multiple peril insurance and pass it. A woman of her word, Speaker Pelosi has ensured that first two of the formal three-step process has already been met. The Republicans have been fighting this all the way, and the Bush White House has already announced its opposition to it.

Undeterred, Pelosi said she would do her part, and she is making good on her word. A subcommittee of and the full Finance Committee have passed the bill that would expand the federal flood insurance program to include wind. With one policy where American home and business owners can get both wind and flood insurance coverage, we won’t have private insurance industry deliberately failing to pay on the wind insurance policies as the industry has apparently done. We will have the option of having one policy and one carrier for both. Remember, the private insurance companies got out of the insurance business in the 60’s.

When Pelosi returns to the Katrina-ravaged region today, she does so as the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Where are the high ranking Republicans who ought to be attending? For that matter, where were they last year?

From what I have learned, once again, no Republican is attending. Not one. This is more than disappointing. When Katrina hit, the storm blew through Republican and Democratic homes and businesses alike. When Katrina hit, the storm devastated right wing Republican homes and businesses along with Democratic ones. When the insurance industry abandoned and betrayed Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana residents and business owners, it abandoned and betrayed Republican and Democratic ones simultaneously.

This hurricane was nonpartisan. The ensuing financial and physical devastation are nonpartisan. The depression and post-traumatic stress that plagues the areas residents and businessowners are nonpartisan. The cry for assistance is also nonpartisan. I am grateful that the highest levels of Democratic leadership as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi demonstrated last year and this are hearing and responding to our plea. It is the right thing to do. It is the moral thing to do. It is the compassionate thing to do.

Wasn’t it George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who campaigned on compassion? Apparently, it is the Democrats who DO compassion whereas Republicans only use it as a campaign slogan.

Isn’t the Republican Party the one that loves to campaign about being pro-family? Katrina hit families hard, and those families continue to hurt. Guess it isn’t the right year for campaign photo ops and speeches that give the impression of being pro-family, huh? Republicans TALK compassion. Democrats DO compassion.

Isn’t the Republican Party the one that likes to campaign on issues of fiscal responsibility? Oooops. Bush’s FEMA is anything but fiscally responsible. Take their handling of delivering formaldehyde-filled FEMA trailers. On the floor of the House of Representatives, Gulf Coast Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS) spoke to the issue of the Bush Administration’s fraudulent practices through FEMA.

But those trailers were delivered by a friend of the president by the name of Riley Bechtel, a major contributor to Bush administration. He got $16,000 to haul a trailer the last 70 miles from Purvis, Miss., down to the Gulf Coast, hook it up to a garden hose, hook it up to a sewer tap, and plug it in, $16,000.

Isn’t the Republican Party the one that likes to campaign on issues important to business? When the insurance industry fails to pay on the wind insurance policies that its customers paid premiums, the industry members are not distinguishing between wrongfully denying customers based on whether they are residential or commercial customers. No, sir, they are not. As the insurance industry fails to pay out on its wind insurance policies for which business owners have paid their premiums, these businesses cannot rebuild, cannot open their doors, and cannot return to their customers and employees. The same is true when insurance rates are no longer affordable. To thrive, communities must have businesses: grocery stores, clothing stores, malls, auto repair shops, paint stores, music stores, movie theaters, restaurants, etc.

I have driven all along the Mississippi Gulf Coast from Lakeshore, Miss., on the far western corner along Beach Boulevard across the new Bay Bridge all the way to Biloxi about 40 miles away. I didn’t see ONE gas station. Not ONE. In fact, I hardly saw any businesses or residences or the construction of any of these either. Here we are up against the two-year anniversary. What I did see were plenty of wide open space where homes and businesses were once plentiful.

Tonight will be interesting from a number of perspectives. It’s my second one with Speaker Pelosi. Back in 2001, she held a town hall meeting in her district of San Francisco, which I attended. It was vibrant and alive. I felt exhilarated by the entirety of it all. A Bay kid (yours truly from Bay St. Louis, Miss.) at a town hall meeting in the hub of what the world knows as the Bay area of California—San Francisco. Most people there expressed outrage at the stolen 2000 presidential election.

(Boy, if the Bush White House neglect in Hurricane Katrina doesn’t demonstrate clearly that election outcomes have consequences . )

Tonight’s town hall meeting is going to be a fundamentally different topic. It’s going to be fundamentally different for me, though, because the topic is deeply personal. I’ve lived the post-Katrina life now for five months. I’m native. I needed no tutoring on the customs and values here. I possess them. I need no photos of the pre-Katrina landscape. I have vibrant memories seared in my mind. I need no explanation of why the Mississippi Gulf Coast residents—regardless of our ethnicity or when our ancestors arrived or how, think and act as they do. All of this is in my own DNA. I need no explanation of the values here for these are in my heart.

Throughout the Mississippi Gulf Coast, we are all hard working, humble, modest people who value family, friends, and community. We are among the poorest areas in the country.
Folks around here tend to keep their head down and trudge through whatever obstacles are before them. We are fiercely independent in nature and value self-reliance even when help would make life easier, better. We are forever grateful when someone does assist us. Loyalty is big for us.

Our collective fascination with the intricacies of the political world is on par with that throughout the country. Not much. In the aftermath of the worst natural disaster, though, the only political sophistication that will remain seared in our collective memory is who came here to help. We’re forever grateful to all volunteers whether they came here in person or sent their George Washington envoy (money).

With the private insurance industry rolling over us and Bush’s FEMA, our memory of who helped us will have two faces on it today. Mississippi’s own Congressman Gene Taylor, a conservative, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a progressive. In a way, this is what it really means to reach across the proverbial political divide to get things done on behalf of the American people where ever we live in our nation.

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Post-Katrina Living: Making Do and Good Enough

by Ana Maria

It’s finally here! We have the date on which the contractor will arrive and do the next set of renovations to my mom’s home.

He’ll sand and seal the wood that hasn’t been touched in that way since my parents had the house built 45 years ago. Hang the doors to the bedrooms. Rework the closet doors. Create new doors for the utility room. Put up the crown molding on the ceiling and the floors. I think that about covers this next leg of returning to life BK—before Katrina.

When I arrived back in March, I was shocked at everything. From the total disappearance of so much of my home town here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast through the evaporation of nearly every home and business along the 40-50 miles of beach going east to Biloxi, which is as far as I’ve traveled that way. Then going west to see family in New Orleans was more of the same: destruction, devastation, disappearance, and evaporation.

Clearly, the PR campaign that the Bush Administration has going along with its counterpart in the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion via Haley Barbour doesn’t hold any water. Barbour is the former head of the national Republican Party and good friends with Bush. Naturally, they would support each other’s BS, I mean PR, campaign.

I’ve been here now five months. I have acclimated to a great deal and in ways no one could have convinced me that I would ever acclimate myself. Not that long ago, I was living in the lap of comparative luxury over there in San Jose, Calif.

I lived in a beautiful apartment inside a complex with three “sparkling pools” as its brochures like to brag, two tennis courts, two workout rooms, free tennis and yoga classes, and a sauna—actually two: one for women and one for men. Everything was convenient to my locale. Within a matter of minutes, I could be at any number of malls and full-sized grocery stores. Real grocery stores!

Safeway, Albertson’s, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, PW, Ranch 99—the large Asian food store chain. Plus there were a myriad of farm stands and plenty of smaller ethnic grocery stores. What joy! What bliss! Especially for someone like me that loves to cook and is damned good at it, too.

Today, I have Wal-Mart. In California, I protested with my union friends the atrocious employee policies that Wal-Mart uses. Today, it’s the only grocery around, and I’ve tempered my political preference for the reality life is currently presenting to my family, friends, and neighbors. Today, I go to Wal-Mart to get groceries and rarely think more than twice about it.

In my very first blog entry on the first of May, I wrote, “The best I’ve come up with is that many of life’s routine activities is like walking through glue . . . for miles on end.” That remains the best way I’ve come up with for describing post-Katrina life. As a current example, let’s talk about moving out of the house so the contractor can come in and work on it.

I called around to locate a hotel. Well, there aren’t that many. The one I wanted to book is literally 5 blocks from the house and would be great. It’s booked solid. Oh. We FINALLY get a contractor and his schedule and ours is permitting him to come fix up the house . . . and we can’t find a hotel nearby? I panicked.

Next, I called Hollywood Casino Hotel. It’s almost twice as expensive, and we would not have all the nights we would need. That won’t do. If I’m having to interrupt the routine for an elderly mother who is not in her prime physical condition--though she's sharp as a tack mentally, I want to get somewhere and stay put until we can come home. Nevertheless, I took the rooms I could.

Then, I called the lesser motel down the road a bit. Rooms are plentiful. Great! I booked them and then, I canceled the other reservations. My younger brother recommended that I actually look at the rooms., which I did. He was right. Not good enough.

My hotel hunting began all over again. There are limitations to what has been rebuilt and open for business. Finally, I settled at another casino hotel which is about 25 minutes from the house. There some interruption in our stay, but it is doable. It’s more than good enough for now. It has to be.

The story of post-Katrina life. Making do and good enough.

Personally, I am elated to be going to a hotel with extremely comfortable beds. Little furniture is in the house today. I’ve been sleeping on a twin-sized air mattress. A month ago, it sprung a leak. I repaired it . . . so I thought. I repaired it again. Better.

It would go like this for a few weeks toward the end of which I would find myself in the middle of the air mattress, squarely with my butt and back up against the wood floor. Finally, I gave up. If I’m going to end up on the floor anyway, I may as well just put myself there to begin with and quit waking up oddly contorted.

Believe me, in other circumstances, I would have gone out and bought another air mattress. Heck, in other circumstances, I would have gone out and bought the replacement mattress, set up the bed, and had myself some terrific sleep. If anything, however, these are extra-ordinary circumstances even some two years after the storm.

Back in April when I met the woman who turned me on to her contractor husband, I had thought everything would work out so he could get in here at the end of May at the latest. Then, I kept thinking a few more weeks, a few more weeks.

The whole time, I was slowly being baptized in the post-Katrina way things are. When I’d become agitated at something, I would think to myself, “This is only temporary. This, too, shall pass—quickly. I can handle anything for a little while.”

Or I would think, “I’ve only been at this since March. I can NOT imagine how it has been for those who’ve been back a year or those who actually went through the storm!”

So, when I found myself waking up in the middle of the night in contorted positions due to the deflation of my air mattress, I pulled out one of my old stand-bys and thought, “This is only temporary.” Of course, there is another part of me that says that things like this are part of my post-Katrina experience. My dues, as it were.

Going to a hotel room for a while will be a welcomed reprieve with its wonderful bed that will be heavenly to sleep on, I’m sure. (I’ve actually gone to the hotel and looked at the rooms. Gorgeous! A fabulous bed to sleep on--a new found luxury.)

See, there is no use in buying mattresses to replace the ones that had to be gotten rid of after Katrina had her way with the house. Why buy them and put them up only to have to move ‘em when the contractor gets here? It’s going to be harried enough with all the moving parts to prepping the house for the contractor without adding to the workload.

And so this is how I imagine many others from every walk of life have coped with the dysfunction that has characterized post-Katrina living. Whether finding the courage to go up against the insurance industry or dealing with a contractor that has taken money and failed to show up (a horror story that is far too common) or dealing with not finding a contractor to do the work in the first place, folks around here have more than perfected the art of making do.

Whether sleeping on the floor or putting up with the contamination that is inside the formaldehyde-filled, Barbie doll-sized FEMA trailers or dealing with insurance companies trying to rip off consumers by hiding behind false claims that the 135 plus mile-per-hour winds created not a smidgen of damage to a home or business, folks throughout the Katrina-ravaged region have invented new ways of defining good enough.

But these persistent conditions are not good enough. No one here should have to make do for two long years. It’s not right. As always, the question is how do we improve the situation? What can we do? What kind of political hell can we raise to shake things up and make things better?

Today’s Political Hell Raising Activity

''Fighting an insurance company is like staring down the wrong end of a cannon,'' Dr. Bennett said after fighting his insurance company in New Hampshire.

Dr. Bennett is so very right. We can change this and have the insurance industry itself staring down the wrong end of a cannon when it does its policyholders wrong. We have a great opportunity to impact insurance reform efforts this very month.

During August, our federal legislators are in their home districts. We can contact our Congressional representative and two U.S. Senators by phone or email and ask them to support two pieces of legislation to fix the problem going forward. Many lawmakers will be holding town hall meetings. Going to one and asking for their support is another option.

1. One policy: Wind and Water Insurance Coverage
At the same time, let’s continue to contact our federal legislators to support expanding the Federal Flood Insurance Program to include wind. Remember that the insurance industry begged off of its legal obligation to pay if so much as a smidgen of water came onto a property regardless of the damage that wind had caused. This is wrong.

We can make it so the post-Katrina experience doesn’t happen to other Americans. Informing our federal lawmakers that we support having one policy for both flood and wind coverage is how we remedy the situation for the future. That way future American families and businesses will not be required to make do unnecessarily.

2. The Insurance Industry Must Play By the Same Rules
Robbing us blindly with premiums for policies that they deliberately fail to make good on is, well, NOT good enough. So, let’s contact our federal lawmakers to ask for their support on the proposed legislation that would require the insurance industry to operate under the same rules as every other business in America. End its accidental 60-year exemption from laws governing price fixing and collusion.

That proposed legislation is S. 618 (in the Senate) and H.R. (in the House of Representatives). We must make the insurance industry play by the same rules as other businesses in the United States. This is fair.

Together, we can redefine what is good enough.



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Pelosi-led group to tour Gulf Coast

Visit to put focus on region two years after disaster
By Maria Recio - McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Thu, Aug. 09, 2007

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will lead a delegation of 15 House members to New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast on Aug. 12-14 to draw attention to the region just before the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

Pelosi, D-Calif., who led a group of 29 House Democrats for last year's anniversary when her party was in the minority, is looking to contrast the Democrats' active response to hurricane victims with that of the Bush administration.

Although the trip is being labeled "bipartisan," it was unclear if any Republicans would be joining the speaker.

House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., who will be on the trip, said that after last year's visit, "we set to work meeting with local officials, touring the region and determining the needs around infrastructure, education, health care, public safety and housing. We made a commitment to do better to help the Gulf Coast."

Hurricane Katrina hit the Crescent City and the Mississippi coast on Aug. 29, 2005, destroying homes, schools and buildings, and displacing hundreds of thousands of residents. The initial lackluster response of Federal Emergency Management Agency continues to haunt the Bush administration, but officials say they've since gotten on track.

"We're grateful for the help we've gotten, but we've still got challenges," said Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., who lost his home in Katrina.

Taylor will hold a town meeting for constituents with the visiting members to push for his signature legislation -- multiple peril federal insurance. Taylor's bill would include wind damage as part of the federal flood insurance program in order to prevent the raging legal disputes policyholders are having with insurers over whether homes were destroyed by wind or water. The House is expected to consider the bill in September.

In Louisiana, the lawmakers will visit the Lower Ninth Ward, tour the St. Bernard Health Center, visit a New Orleans school and observe the city's levee system.

Original article here.

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Normalcy Long Overdue in Katrina-Ravaged Region

by Ana Maria

Two days ago, Mississippi voters in the Democratic Primary ousted Insurance Commissioner George Dale, whose cozy relationship with Big Insurance became his electoral albatross. Surely less than a year ago, Dale anticipated his re-election bid to retain the normalcy he had experienced over the last three decades of running for office.

The campaigns for newly-elected Democratic nominee Gary Anderson and his Republican opponent will recuperate from the primary, then redirect their efforts for the usual hustle and bustle of a general election, which will be held this November. Even inside the chaotic nature of every election campaign, there is a sense of normalcy to that chaos—at least for those of us who’ve been in a few.

Here inside the Katrina-ravaged region, we’re still struggling to return to a sense of normalcy. At Katrina’s ground zero, we still have Wal-Mart as our only grocery store for at least a 30 minute ride in any direction. Insurance companies continue to low ball, delay, and fight tooth and nail to break their legal contracts to pay on legitimate wind damage claims. Reliable, solid, and reasonably priced contractors to repair homes are still miraculous to find. FEMA continues to jerk around municipalities.

Jobs are scarce. More scarce are employees. More scarce still? Housing.

Even hotels are difficult to find. On reflection, that makes sense. When Big Insurance decided not to pay wind damage claims for its wind policy customers, it did screwed over all customers—including the hotels.

What is easy to find are the stories of how folks survived in those first few weeks after Katrina hit.

Turning Family Homes into Hotels and Restaurants
Yesterday, I spoke with a young woman who was going into her senior in high school two years ago when Katrina hit. She works as a concierge at one of the local casino resort hotels that re-opened recently. She is working at the hotel as she goes to the local university.

When I encouraged her to stay in school, she looked me squarely in my eyes and said, “Don’t worry. I was valedictorian of my class. I have every intention of getting my degree.” Good. I asked how her family made out in the storm.

She said that her family lives in Guatier (go-sheyah), Miss., near a river, but the family home only had a few shingles fly off their roof. No other damage. Fortunately, her dad owns a local roofing business so repairing was a breeze. Given the family’s relative fortune in coming out of the worst natural disaster, I asked how many people ended up staying at their place.

Notice, I didn’t ask whether they opened their home. I didn’t ask if anyone had asked to come stay with them. Given the innumerable stories that I’ve heard since returning home in March for my, uh, short surprise visit that has since extended past the few weeks I had intended, I knew that it wasn’t a matter of whether, but how many stayed with them.

The young college student told me that after Katrina, her family helped everyone clear out yards and streets. For at least a month, and maybe six weeks, after the storm, though, they didn’t have any electricity. She said that sometimes they were cooking for 50 people—breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They didn’t know how many or who would show up much less when. It was like running a hotel.

Amazing.

My cousin Eric was living in Slidell at the time Katrina hit. Slidell is 30 minutes east of New Orleans and 30 minutes west of Bay St. Louis, Miss.,--one of the three tiny beach towns that comprise Katrina’s ground zero. When the New Orleans levees broke, parts of Slidell flooded. Eric and his immediate family did ok. His older brother, Chip, who lives in Diamondhead, Miss., just a bit up the road from the western part of the Gulf Coast, lost everything. Recently, Eric shared with me part of his post-Katrina story.

One Big Garage Sale—With a Twist
Like the young woman’s family in Gautier, Eric and his wife Lisa had opened their home to Katrina survivors never knowing how many would be eating with them at breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Fortunately, Lisa is a great cook and loves cooking. Eric said it was like running a restaurant because they had to cook big batches of everything.

Every room in his home housed survivors—including a woman in the last month or two of her pregnancy. He felt badly because the better beds were upstairs which she had to climb for the more comfortable sleeping quarters.

Eric holds a leadership position in an international Catholic prayer circle dedicated to Medjugorje. He put out a call to those members who live on the west bank of New Orleans, because they didn’t get hit by either Katrina or the levee breaks. With creative flare, he asked for everyone to clear out their garages. If it isn’t being used, donate it to those who lost so much in Katrina.

Calls poured in. On his lunch hour, after work and on the weekends, Eric would go pick up furniture, baby clothes, appliances, or whatever people had and networked to give it to those who in need.

He said that he had learned of a very elderly African American lady—around 90 years old, if I recall correctly—who had 15 family members in her home, but she had no stove to cook the meals. A call came in about a brand new stove sitting in someone’s garage waiting to be installed in the house. The family decided that the old stove was fine, and they could donate the stove to the effort.

Eric had one lady tell him that she needed a bed. But the catch was that her husband was a BIG man requiring a king sized bed. Oooo. That’s gonna be a tough one. He told her to pray for it. He had not even reached his home when a call came in—someone had a king-sized bed. Did he know who could use it?

Eric regaled me with story after story similar to that one. In one instance, a mother told Eric that just before the storm, she had just finished decorating her young daughter’s room with everything Shortcake and how devastating losing it had been on her daughter. Now the woman was clearly just sharing with my beloved cousin part of her family’s Katrina story.

Yet, before he knew it, he got a call from a woman who told him that her daughter had outgrown her bedroom, which had been decorated in everything Shortcake. Did he know of anyone that could use it?
Around Christmas time, Eric’s boss approached him asking what he is doing on his lunch hour. He had been watching Eric—a longtime, valued employee—dart in an out for a few weeks. So Eric told him of the garage-emptying project he started. The boss was impressed, of course. What did he do? Noting that Christmas was coming up, he asked how he could best help provide for those families. Eric said “gift cards.”

If I recall correctly, the boss put out an email to all the employees. The company ended up donating piles of $25 gift cards, which Eric and his merry band of friends personally delivered to various families so that the parents could shop for their kids. One woman, whom I’m sure represented the reaction from many recipient, simply cried when Eric handed her the package of gift cards tied neatly with a pretty ribbon. She said that she had no idea how to provide some normalcy in her children’s lives. She thanked him profusely.

Another lady opened her door when Eric knocked. She listened as he said what he was there to drop off. He handed her the gift cards wrapped in pretty ribbon, and without a word, she closed the door. Months later, she got word to him that she was so stunned, so in shock, that she couldn’t say a word. She, too, was grateful for the sense of normalcy the gift cards would bring to her children at Christmas.

Normalcy? What normalcy?
We’re just shy of the two-year anniversary from any sense of normalcy here in the Katrina-ravaged region.

Those who live in New Orleans are suffering because of the levee break and the breakdown in our federal government, which has utterly failed to live up to its obligation to the American people.

Those who live outside of New Orleans, but inside Louisiana—such as those in Slidell, and those of us who live anywhere along the 50 miles of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and into Alabama, also yearn for normalcy.

A sense of normalcy. That is what everyone here yearns for. Anytime some small effort is put forth, all one has to do is take a drive down beach boulevard in Bay St. Louis and Waveland, Miss., then cross the bridge and continue down highway 90 from Pass Christian through Long Beach, Gulfport, Biloxi, and Ocean Springs. The stairs leading to no where represent homes that have not been able to be rebuilt. Same with the slabs that are cleared of debris but overgrown with weeds. And the steel beams standing erect waiting for the walls to be returned to their pre-Katrina place.

For all of us here, a sense of pre-Katrina normalcy is long overdue.

As I hear of all these wonderful, arms wide-open stories of folks making do and doing more than good enough to get through this ongoing crisis, I keep thinking why in the living heck George Bush and the vast resources at his fingertips didn’t and still doesn’t bother to lift much of a finger to restore a sense of normalcy.

Oh, I see.

I forgot to look carefully at which finger he and his administration were collectively lifting.



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Gary Anderson Wins: Post-Katrina Justice Rules!!

by Ana Maria

In a gloriously magnificent upset electoral victory, Democratic candidate Gary Anderson defeated George Dale 51-49% to become Mississippi’s first African American Democratic nominee for Insurance Commissioner. Anderson’s pro-consumer position resonated throughout the state sending George Dale packing after 32 years in office.

Just two years after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Mississippi Gulf Coast, voters from the three coastal counties definitively voted for Anderson in a sharp slap in the face to George Dale who had come to epitomize Big Insurance. The three tiny beach towns comprising Katrina’s ground zero reside in Hancock and Harrison counties. Voters in those counties cast ballots for Gary Anderson at a rate of 69% and 82% respectively. Jackson County, which is Mississippi’s third county on the eastern end of the Gulf Coast, voted for Gary Anderson over incumbent George Dale at a rate of 76%. Voter revenge? You bet.

Anderson’s appeal to rededicate the state’s insurance commissioner position to the tradition of protecting consumers from the ravages of Big Insurance resonated throughout the state. For example, 67% of voters cast their ballots for Anderson over Dale in Hinds County where George Dale lives. The state’s capitol city of Jackson is in Hinds County, which is in the middle of the state. The Clarion Ledger, Jackson’s daily newspaper, endorsed Dale. Ooops! By a wide margin, voters must have ignored the paper’s perspective that they’d be in good hands with Ol’ George.

Of course, George Dale did his best to convince voters that his primary job was to prop up insurance companies rather than protecting policyholders. George Dale told voters that Katrina was “the worst natural disaster in U.S. history . . . and put an undue burden on insurance companies.”

Mississippi voters cast their ballots which reflected their agreement with Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, the “billionaire insurance titan” who stated "We are in the insurance business. We are in the risk business. And if you start taking away every risk that industry is exposed to, then what do you need an insurance company for?"

Licking their Wounds
We can count on the Dale campaign spending endless hours commiserating over what went wrong . . . with the campaign. What it will not do is entertain the idea that the campaign was doomed from the get go. No amount of nuancing, no amount of strategizing, no tactical preparations could remove from the campaign its fundamental flaw.

George Dale didn’t do his job, and many, many, many families, businesses, communities, schools, cities, towns, non-profits, and places of worship suffered—and continue to suffer—needlessly.

The Dale Campaign will surely be licking their wounds for a while. However, they may never see that the candidate inflicted those wounds upon himself.

Pundits Predicted Appallingly
Some pundits predicted that voters along the Gulf Coast would not show up to the polls. They were, uh, wrong. Some predicted that the more northern counties would carry Dale to victory. Wrong again. Some predicted that Mississippians wouldn’t cast their ballot for an African American man over a white, good ol’ boy who’s entrenched in the Old South way of doing business. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

What happened?
George Dale epitomized Big Insurance, which the whole world now knows is starving Gulf Coast businesses and families of the funding that would power up the engine to recovery. The elephant in the middle of the room is Big Insurance. With George Dale out of office, we now have a chance to address the issue and remedy the problems caused during his tenure and with his help.

Breaking its legal contracts with policyholders, Big Insurance has wrongfully denied families and businesses the money required for rebuilding. George Dale sided with the insurance companies. These very same families and business owners went to the polls and cast their ballots for Gary Anderson, rejecting Dale’s business as usual approach.

Rather than rolling out the red carpet for the insurance companies as George Dale has done, Gary Anderson campaigned on a platform that includes creating a criminal investigations division. That Anderson has to set up a criminal investigations division means that George Dale never did in spite of 32 years in which to do so. Without a criminal investigation arm, Dale assured his insurance industry friends that they had nothing to fear. With Anderson's win, Dale's Big Insurance friends now have something to fear.

Lacking Imagination
Neither Dale nor the insurance industry counted on voters raging over their post-Katrina greed . . . and actually channeling their rage into the ballot box. Clearly, they never imagined that Gary Anderson could mount an effective campaign to tap into that voter rage and channel it into his own electoral victory on behalf of all of Mississippi consumers. Well, that’s what a lack of imagination will do for you.

Jacking Up Premiums
In obscene fashion, Big Insurance has jacked up the cost of insurance throughout Mississippi—just as it has done in California, Oklahoma, and elsewhere in the nation. George Dale authorized each of those jacked up premiums. Voters took note and cast their ballots that vetoed Dale’s rubber-stamping the industry’s greed-driven premium hikes.

Pocketing Industry Funds
While Dale raked in hundreds of thousands of campaign dollars essentially flaunting his torrid affair with an industry that has wreaked havoc on Mississippians, Gary Anderson signed a pledge not to take contributions from insurance companies or executives.

When talking with A.M. in the Morning! recently, Hancock County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Tish Williams said the biggest impediment to recovery remains the cost of insurance. Ms. Williams added that right up behind that is finding employees, which is problematic because there is no housing. The housing, she added, goes right back to the issue of insurance. So, insurance is the biggest impediment to recovery.

Post-Katrina Justice Rules!
The election of staunchly pro-consumer candidate Gary Anderson is the outcry for removing that impediment. While Big Insurance may now be heard crying in it beer over losing its sweetheart in the Mississippi Insurance Commissioner’s office, we can be heard happily singing a new tune with the election of Gary Anderson as the Democratic nominee for the state’s Insurance Commissioner. Post-Katrina Justice Rules!


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A Breath Of Fresh Air In Post-Katrina Mississippi

by Ana Maria

Today’s a big day in Mississippi. While there are plenty of contested local races throughout the state—particularly on the Republican side, the insurance commissioner is the most important statewide race because it impacts every individual, family, community, and every form of government inside the state.

Here on the coast, electing Gary Anderson as the Democratic nominee and booting out George Dale from office would clearly send more than a few ripples of joy throughout the Katrina-ravaged region. You see, the insurance crisis impacts so many things that most of us—myself included—just don’t think about until it is pointed out.

For example, I’m hearing how drug and alcohol abuse among teens and adults has dramatically increased since Katrina. Kids have no where to go—not a movie theater, skating rink, nothing. What is there to do? How are they to channel all the usual that comes with being a teen and all the unusual that resides inside of them because of Katrina’s impact?

Their friends may be scattered to the winds. The kids may have had to deal with death of friends or family members. Their homes may be gone, schools destroyed, social groups evaporated. Their families finances shattered because of jobs no longer available since most businesses were lost in Katrina. On top of that, little to no money for rebuilding the family home.

We know that communities everywhere struggle with this issue of teens and having places for them to go and activities to keep them occupied in healthy ways. Put on top of that having lost everything they’ve ever known including their social network that helps them go through those difficult years that transform kids into young adults. No wonder drugs and alcohol are rampant.

This past weekend, I attended a Democratic Women’s annual picnic in which many candidates or their surrogates spoke. I was honored to speak on behalf of Gary Anderson. The park was stupendously gorgeous with water to the one side of us, beautiful homes on another, and the beautiful green grass and trees everywhere.

My pitch was easy—all Gary Anderson voters, of course. Yes, I gave them a political hell raising activity: get out their address books and call all of their friends and family to ensure that they remembered to get out and vote. (I'm the same me on paper and in person—only a lot more lively in the flesh.)

The lady who spoke with me about the teen issue also talked with me about the level of depression hitting teens as well as adults and how she is losing friends to suicide, those who lose hope that their lives will ever get back to some level of normalcy.

I listened as she told me that another issue facing the Gulf Coast is the lack of affordable housing in the area and how the insurance companies have made it so that apartment complexes cannot afford to rebuild and that those that may be rebuilt will have to substantially raise the rent to cover the insurance rates.

I recall talking with a grade school friend some months back. Before the storm, her elderly mother’s apartment rent was about $500 a month. After Katrina, the rent nearly doubled—$900 a month. I don’t know about you, but if my monthly costs for housing doubled, that would be more than a bit difficult to absorb.

Most of us could not absorb it regardless of whether we are Democrats or Republicans, seniors or not yet seniors, single or married, Caucasian, African American, Vietnamese American, Sikh, Latino, disabled veteran, coach, nurse, lawyer or doctor. Whether we are salaried, self-employed, hourly wage or fixed income households, we all have “X” amount of money coming in—if we’re among the lucky ones, that is. Increasing household expenses in such a dramatic fashion makes life more than difficult to say the least.

By the way, my grade school friend’s family who received this shocking increase on mom’s rent? The family is Republican.

Increased teen drug and alcohol abuse, adult depression so overwhelming that suicide seems the only out of the unnecessary misery, skyrocketing financial burdens unfair under any circumstances. And what does Mississippi Insurance Commissioner George Dale have to say about all of this?

“My mistake after Katrina was saying . . . some claims are not going to be paid because of water damage.”

WHAT?! The financial ruin of an entire region because Dale chose to turn his back on these communities, cities, towns, and every person inside of them. The emotional devastation that came as a result of Dale assisting his insurance industry buddies to create the largest financial disaster to hit the area probably since the Great Depression in the 1930s. And all he can think about is that his mistake was blurting out what was that he shouldn’t have gone public with insider knowledge that he was going to let the insurance companies get away with ripping off Gulf Coast residents?

Dale’s comments seem to have come from a set of talking points that the insurance industry would have supplied him.

I don’t know how a public official can be so completely devoid of taking personal responsibility for the ruin his own public policies have had on an entire region. I don’t know how a public official can be so completely devoid of an ounce of genuine compassion.

Who am I kidding? George Dale publicly campaigned on behalf of George W. Bush.

I pray that tonight will bring everyone on the Gulf Coast great joy at having helped to give George Dale his walking papers through electing Gary Anderson as the next Democratic nominee for the state’s insurance commissioner. While the insurance industry will have the wind knocked out of it, electing Gary Anderson will be a breath of air that surely to goodness we could all use especially here in post-Katrina Mississippi.


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Lawsuit accuses insurers of defrauding government over Katrina flood damage

Posted on Mon, Aug. 06, 2007

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
Associated Press Writer

NEW ORLEANS -- A U.S. attorney in Mississippi is weighing whether to intervene in a lawsuit that accuses insurance companies of overbilling the federal government for flood damage from Hurricane Katrina, said a judge who unsealed the case Monday.

A team of lawyers filed the so-called "whistleblower" suit in April 2006 on behalf of two sisters who worked for a company that helped State Farm Insurance Co. adjust policyholder claims on the Mississippi Gulf Coast after the August 2005 storm.

But the suit was legally required to remain under seal so Dunn Lampton, the U.S. attorney for the southern half of Mississippi, could investigate and consider intervening in the case.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Walker in Gulfport, Miss., ordered the case unsealed Monday, even though the federal government had argued that its disclosure would "compromise (its) ability to conduct an adequate civil investigation of this case."

"The government gives no explanation for how the investigation would be compromised by unsealing the case," Walker wrote in a one-page order.

A spokeswoman for Lampton didn't immediately return telephone calls Monday.

A legal team led by high-profile litigator Richard "Dickie" Scruggs filed the lawsuit on behalf of Cori and Kerri Rigsby, sisters from Ocean Springs, Miss., who worked for a company that contracted with State Farm.

State Farm, Nationwide Insurance Co., Allstate Insurance Co., USAA Insurance Co., and several engineering firms that contracted with the companies are named as defendants in the suit.

The suit, which represents only one side of a legal argument, accuses insurance companies of pressuring engineers to falsify reports so storm damage could be blamed on flood water instead of wind, which would shift the financial burden to the National Flood Insurance Program.

The companies say their homeowner policies cover damage from wind but not rising water, including storm surge. Insurers sell separate flood insurance policies that are subsidized by the federal government.

"By employing engineering reports that reallocated losses to 'flood' instead of homeowners, State Farm, Nationwide, and other insurers essentially pushed off their responsibility to pay claims onto the federal government," the 35-page lawsuit alleges.

Zach Scruggs, Richard Scruggs' son and law partner, acknowledged Lampton's intervention could make it a stronger case.

"I think it's going to be a strong case, either way," Zach Scruggs said. "It's their right to (intervene), but we are more than prepared and willing to litigate this on our own, on behalf of the government."

State Farm spokesman Phil Supple said: "Given that the Rigsbys have been self-proclaimed whistleblowers for more than a year, it was not surprising to see the existence of this lawsuit, which gives them a potential monetary incentive for filing it."

E.A. Renfroe & Co., a Birmingham, Ala.-based insurance adjusting firm, assigned the Rigsbys to help State Farm adjust Katrina claims. The sisters quit the firm after they provided Scruggs - and state and federal authorities - with reams of internal State Farm claims records.

The sisters claim the documents show that State Farm manipulated engineering reports so claims could be denied, a charge that the Bloomington, Ill.-based insurer denies.

Renfroe sued the Rigsbys for distributing the documents. Last month, a federal judge presiding over that case in Alabama appointed two veteran attorneys to prosecute Richard Scruggs and his law firm for criminal contempt.

U.S. District Judge William Acker ruled in June that Scruggs "willfully violated" a court order requiring him to return all of the documents that the Rigsby secretly copied.

Meanwhile, the Rigsbys' suit isn't the first of its kind since Katrina hit on Aug. 29, 2005. In Louisiana, U.S. Attorney David Dugas decided against intervening in a whistleblowers' lawsuit that also accuses insurers of overbilling the NFIP for Katrina's flood damage.

An attorney for a group of former insurance adjusters filed that suit last year in federal court. A federal judge in New Orleans unsealed it in May.



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