Insurance bill up for vote

Taylor likes chances of proposal to add wind to flood policies

Posted on Tue, Sep. 25, 2007
By MARIA RECIO
SUN HERALD WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON --
The House is expected to vote Thursday on expanding federal flood insurance to include wind damage, a landmark change brought on by the insurance industry response to Hurricane Katrina.

Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Bay St. Louis, who lost his home in Katrina, pushed for the "multi-peril" provision to the Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization Act of 2007, after seeing constituents get little or no payments for privately insured wind damage and full coverage from the federal flood program. Taylor sued his insurer and settled earlier this year.

After pushing a bill for over two years, an invigorated Taylor is looking forward to the upcoming vote. "I'm excited about it," he said. "I'm not taking anything for granted. We've got almost every Democrat and some Republicans on the Gulf Coast from Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. It should be the necessary margin."

The legislation has a powerful advocate in the House: Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who made the issue a personal promise to the South Mississippi communities in visits to the region on Katrina anniversaries in August 2006 and last month.

Having the speaker's support "is huge," said Taylor. "She's been an incredibly huge help."

Pelosi lobbied or "whipped" Democrats when the bill was before the House Financial Services Committee in July. "She went to wavering Democrats," said Taylor, "and that's what it's going to take."

Pelosi is expected to push the issue again Wednesday at the weekly Democratic Caucus meeting.

"The bill has widespread support," said Steven Adamske, spokesman for the House Financial Services Committee. "We feel good about where this bill is positioned."

Under the bill, approved by the financial services committee 38-29 in July, policyholders of the flood insurance program would be able to purchase wind insurance policies, although wind coverage would be not available as a stand-alone policy.

The multiple-peril residential policy limit would be set at $500,000 for the structure and $150,000 for contents. The bill increases the maximum coverage for flood insurance policies from $250,000 to $335,000 for residences. The program would be paid for from actuarially determined premiums.

Opponents of the bill, including insurers and some public interest groups, say that the flood insurance program is essentially bankrupt and that adding another liability would eventually hit the taxpayers. The flood insurance program had to borrow $17.5 billion more than it took in because of Katrina and Rita claims.

"We don't think this is the time to expand the flood insurance program, " said Don Griffin, a vice president of the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America. "You don't know how many people will buy the program, so you don't know how to price it."

Dennis Kelly, spokesman for the American Insurance Association, said, "We do not want to see any mechanisms that displace the private market."

But Taylor and other bill supporters point to the role the states have had to take, creating so-called "wind pools" in states such as Mississippi and Florida to provide coverage to coastal residents after insurers stopped writing policies.

Taylor said he is bracing for an insurance industry-backed battle on the House floor. "I expect a very contentious fight," he said.

Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization Act of 2007
Here are the key features of H.R. 3121:

• Increases the amount FEMA can raise policy rates in any given year from 10 percent to 15 percent.

• Extends multiple-peril policies for wind damage where local governments agree to adopt and enforce building codes and standards designed to minimize wind damage.

• Allows any community participating in the flood insurance program to opt in to the multiple-peril option. The multiple-peril residential-policy limit is $500,000 for the structure and $150,000 for contents. Nonresidential properties could be covered to $1 million for structure and $750,000 for contents and business interruption.

• Increases the maximum coverage limits for flood insurance policies. New coverage limits would be $335,000 for residences, $135,000 for residential contents, and $670,000 for businesses and churches.

• Phases in actuarial rates for vacation homes and nonresidential properties beginning Jan. 1, 2011.

HOUSE FINANCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE


Type the rest of the blog here.
© 2007 Ana Maria Rosato. All rights reserved.
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Federal help sought for coastal insurance problem

Tuesday, September 25, 2007
By AMBER CRAIG
The Mississippi Press

MOBILE -- Insurance companies seemed to agree Monday that coastal insurance issues will need federal intervention, either by oversight or funding, before they are solved.

Insurance regulators testified before a panel of insurance commissioners from Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Arkansas and the Virgin Islands at a public hearing held by the National Association for Insurance Commissioners to address issues of instability in the market after Hurricane Katrina.

Representatives from Allstate, State Farm and Travelers insurance companies and Lloyds, Guy Carpenter and RenaissanceRe reinsurance companies testified at the four-hour meeting held at the Battle House Renaissance Hotel in Mobile, Ala.

Insurers expressed concern about over-exposure to risk that has led companies to scale back coverage, raise rates and cancel or not renew policies since the storm two years ago.

Alabama Commissioner Walter Bell, president of the national association, said he noticed the companies' proposals all included a major role for the federal government to play.

"They all have a tremendous amount of federal involvement, and that's coming from three large insurance companies," Bell said.

After the three insurance companies testified, Mississippi Insurance Commissioner George Dale said that although he has never been in favor of any federal involvement, there might be room for it to become involved in a limited way.

David Hill, vice president and regional general counsel for State Farm, proposed an adoption of statewide building codes, more accountability from homeowners who live in high risk areas and a modernization of the federal flood program that would prevent people from unknowingly being underinsured.

"For those who had flood insurance, many found that the amount of coverage was not sufficient to cover their losses," Hill said.

Hill also said vulnerable states should start catastrophe funds and federal backstop funds could provide "pre-emptive" funding.

The primary component of a proposal from Travelers is the creation of a Coastal Hurricane Zone, covering the lower two counties or parishes from Eastern Texas to Maine. Those areas that "share the same kind of risk" could have similar insurance rates, adjusted based on actual long-term wind exposure, said John Milette with Travelers.

Milette said the company realized that this kind of plan would be difficult for some people, but said help could be offered through subsidies and tax credits funded by a tax surcharge.

"We do recognize that for some folks it'll be tough," Milette said. "It'll be tough to make that transition."

Milette said his company would not to see the federal government regulate and oversee wind overwriting by private insurers.

Edward T. Collins, managing counsel for Allstate, testified representing Protecting America, a coalition of companies promoting more state and federal backstop funds for catastrophes and stronger mitigation and prevention programs. Allstate is a coalition member.

Collins said the private sector can deliver quickly, but has insufficient capacity to deal with another Katrina-sized catastrophe, especially because more people are moving to high-risk areas. There is a growing gap between the amount of risk and the amount of protection available, Collins said.

"The risk is rising and the level of protection is declining," Collins said.

Insurance commissioners, however, agreed overall that the private sector can do the job more effectively than the federal government alone.

"I don't believe that government will ever be able to do this as well as private entities," said Scott Richardson, insurance director for South Carolina.

One plan mentioned several times during the meeting relies heavily on the federal government. H.R. 3121, the Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization Act, which includes the text of Rep. Gene Taylor's Multiple Peril Insurance Act, is expected to be considered by the full House some time this week.

Alabama Rep. Jo Bonner, a co-sponsor of that bill, told the panel that when Taylor asked for his support, "I didn't hesitate to do so."

Reporter Amber Craig can be reached at acraig@themississippipress.com or (228) 934-1428.

Copyright 2007 gulflive.com. All Rights Reserved.

Mississippi Press published original article on September 25, 2007.

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Buyout plan startles residents, businesses

By J.R. WELSH
baybureau@aol.com
Posted on Fri, Sep. 21, 2007

BAY ST. LOUIS -- Reaction was swift this week to a plan announced by the federal government to buy thousands of acres of hurricane-vulnerable land from private owners as a storm-damage abatement measure.

On Monday a standing-room-only crowd of residents first heard about the proposed buyout from officials of the Army Corps of Engineers and the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources. Almost immediately, a resolution by the business community fluttered its way out of the Hancock County Chamber of Commerce and was endorsed by the Bay St. Louis City Council.

Council members also announced their intent to craft a resolution of their own, but decided to take time to work on the language. Hancock County Board of Supervisors President Rocky Pullman said Thursday his board has not discussed passing a related resolution.

The chamber's three-page resolution essentially asks the state and federal agencies to work with the business community and local governmental bodies before proceeding further with the Mississippi Coastal Improvements Program. The DMR and corps admitted at the public meeting they had been working on the plan for the better part of two years, but have solicited little public input.

The MSCIP is an enormous plan that, if enacted and funded by Congress, could contain as much as $10 billion worth of projects that would affect all three coastal Mississippi counties. A government buyout of as much as 30,000 acres Coastwide would apparently be among the first components.

In the Bay St. Louis area, the corps has targeted all of Shoreline Park and much of Cedar Point for a buyout. Both areas were hit hard by Hurricane Katrina, but property owners are rebuilding. Hollywood Casino also is located in the buyout area.

Across the Bay of St. Louis, the corps wants to buy most of Henderson Point and a swath of land in northern Pass Christian Isles.

Although a top DMR official promised property buyouts would not be mandatory, there has been widespread skepticism. Residents are reacting warily to claims from government agencies that conducted such large-scale planning behind closed doors for so long.

The chamber's resolution has 14 "whereas" clauses before getting to the resolution point. It asks that the corps and DMR "publicly make clear that any future structural and/or non-structural improvement plans would only include those that are designated as appropriate through the City of Bay St. Louis, City of Waveland and Hancock County comprehensive plans."

Tish Williams, executive director of the Chamber of Commerce, said such an action would hopefully quell economic fears created by the announcement of the coastal-improvement plan. She said developers have complained the prospect of such a huge property buyout is causing investors to have second thoughts.

"News of these models here created uncertainty in the marketplace," Williams said. "What if the casino were to take a buyout? Nine hundred jobs would be lost."

Williams said the chamber hopes to see the corps and DMR consult local business and government as the coastal-improvement plan moves forward. But she differed with an offer from DMR Executive Director Bill Walker to drop Hancock County from the plan altogether.

It remains unclear whether Walker, as head of a state agency, would have the authority to significantly alter a federal program.

"The business community believes that dropping Hancock County from the MSCIP is not an option," she said. "We don't want to be dropped from the program. We want to be part of the process."

© 2007 Sun Herald. All Rights Reserved.

The Sun Herald published the original article on September 21, 2007.

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Important Katrina Vote to Help Gulf Coast Recovery

by Ana Maria

“These people don’t necessarily need a good psychiatrist. They need a good contractor or someone to fix the ‘Road Home’ program and good leadership.”

Dr. Elmore Rigamer, psychiatrist
Catholic Charities of New Orleans

Want to help the Katrina survivors in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama? Great! This is it. The week we’ve been waiting for. Just got word that the House of Representatives is anticipating a floor vote on the Multiple Peril Insurance Reform package that Gulf Coast Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS) sponsored. This is where the rubber meets the road. The bill is H.R. 3121, and at the end of this piece will be a link to a sample email letter and phone script and an easy way to find your congressional representative’s email form and phone number.

From New York to California, insurance companies have been jacking up our policy premiums, denying legitimate claims, dropping coverage, and choosing not to write policies for new customers. Big Insurance policy scams place at risk the financial security that upon which American families and businesses depend when we need it the most.

Today, we can help to protect our financial security through giving Big Insurance notice that their gig is up. We're putting our financial security in good hands, our own.

In a riveting expose titled Home Insurers' Secret Tactics Cheat Fire Victims, Hike Profits, Bloomberg News reported

“Insurers often pay 30-60 percent of the cost of rebuilding a damaged home -- even when carriers assure homeowners they're fully covered, thousands of complaints with state insurance departments and civil court cases show.”

Paying out less to victims of catastrophes has helped produce record profits. In the past 12 years, insurance company net income has soared -- even in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the worst natural disaster in U.S. history.

Highest-Ever Profits

Property-casualty insurers, which cover damage to homes and cars, reported their highest-ever profit of $73 billion last year, up 49 percent from $49 billion in 2005, according to Highline Data LLC, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based firm that compiles insurance industry data.

The 60 million U.S. homeowners who pay more than $50 billion a year in insurance premiums are often disappointed when they discover insurers won't pay the full cost of rebuilding their damaged or destroyed homes.

Property insurers systematically deny and reduce their policyholders' claims, according to court records in California, Florida, Illinois, Mississippi, New Hampshire and Tennessee.

The insurance companies routinely refuse to pay market prices for homes and replacement contents, they use computer programs to cut payouts, they change policy coverage with no clear explanation, they ignore or alter engineering reports, and they sometimes ask their adjusters to lie to customers, court records and interviews with former employees and state regulators show.”

We buy insurance for financial security. Period. We’re not playing charity with the insurance company. Purely and simply it is a business transaction. Whether we are an individual or a family, a small business or large corporation, or any of the myriad of governmental bodies across the nation, none of us are handing over our money because of any other reason than for some kind of financial security.

Without it, we risk becoming financially devastated or ruined in the blink of an eye. We know this and pay over hundreds and thousands of dollars to protect our assets: health, life, car, home, businesses, municipalities and the like.

Yesterday, I posted an article from the Washington PostHurricane Katrina Exacts Another Toll: Enduring Depression.

In response to that article, LifeDirection the following comment. The commenter is a single mom, small business owner, home-schooler, tutor, scientist, consultant, and author who lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In June, she had learned that she could pay off her debts quicker than she had realized. Then news of her homeowner’s insurance policy changes arrived.

It's September 2007, and my new homeowners insurance policy takes next month. My hurricane deductible went up from $1000 to $7550. Damn, how am I going to save that much extra money to self-insure against non-catastrophic hurricane damage? I'm already working one full time job and two part time jobs and ends barely meet now. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, again. This kind of stuff is what keeps my depression acting up. You think you're making progress, then bam, something else hits you.

I have an appointment with my psychiatrist this week. Thank goodness. I think I may need a medication change. Or maybe the change in feelings is good. I actually feel angry, frustrated and sad. I was numb since the storm until about 3 months ago. So far I've taken my feelings out in writing on my blogs. I fear becoming violent. The only thing that stopped me from getting in my car and driving to my insurance agent's office was I was still in my boxers and a t-shirt, and by the time I got dressed I had cooled off. I've never felt anger this way before. It scares me.

Here in Katrina Land, the link between our individual and collective mental health and our financial devastation is getting more and more attention. Dr. Daphne Glindmeyer, a New Orleans psychiatrist who is president of the Louisiana Psychiatric Medicine Association, concluded

"There's more depression, more financial problems, more marital conflict, more thoughts of suicide. And a lot of it is in people who never had any trouble before."

At least we’re getting some kind of attention to this problem. Others across the nation have had to bear alone their insurance-induced grief. In its article, Bloomberg opened with what had happened to a homeonwer in San Diego, California.

Julie Tunnell remembers standing in her debris-strewn driveway when the tall man in blue jeans approached. Her northern San Diego tudor-style home had been incinerated a week earlier in the largest wildfire in California history. The blaze in October and November 2003 swept across an area 19 times the size of Manhattan, destroying 2,232 homes and killing 15 people.

Now came another blow. A representative of State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., the largest home insurer in the U.S., came to the charred remnants of Tunnell's home to tell her the company would pay just $220,000 of the estimated $306,000 cost of rebuilding the house.

``It was devastating; I stood there and cried,'' says Tunnell, 42, who teaches accounting at San Diego City College. ``I felt absolutely abandoned.''

The stories are all over the country. State Farm pulling out of Oklahoma while Allstate jacks up its premiums. Allstate refusing to write new policies in California and Brooklyn, New York. And the lack of affordable insurance along with the failure of big insurance companies to pay on legitimate wind claims here in Katrina Land is well known.

What can we do about it? How can we stop this insanity? When will homeowners and business owners, municipalities and counties get a break from the insurance industry? When WE take action to stop the madness.

Luckily, today, this minute, this very second is our lucky break. Yes, you know shat that means. It’s political hell raising time.

Today we must contact every congressional representative to let them know that the financial security of our family requires that we pass the multiple insurance bill that will allow Americans who buy flood insurance from the federal government to opt to purchase wind insurance as well. Private insurers deliberately got out of the flood insurance business in the 60’s and that is when the federal government got in the business of helping families and businesses obtain some financial peace of mind.

Once again, it is the brilliant forethought of a Democrat to protect the financial health and well-being of American families and businesses. Congressman Gene Taylor and his staff drew up the bill that is providing us with this opportunity to salvage our financial security through allowing businesses and homeowners to buy ONE policy to cover both wind and flood.

It’s time to end the big insurance charade, which has proven many times that it isn’t such a good neighbors afterall.

Today’s the day to contact our congressional representatives with a simple message. Our families and our businesses need the financial security that comes from one policy for both wind and flood. Our families and our businesses need Congress to pass H.R. 3121, and we need this on a strong bi-partisan basis.

Passing this bill is what will help to salvage some financial and emotional stress here in Katrina Land . . . and help millions of American families and businesses throughout the nation, 55% of whom--including yours truly--live within 50 miles of our nation’s beautiful coastline, families and businesses that deserve to sleep well at night knowing that paying their insurance premiums places their financial security in good hands.


© 2007 Ana Maria Rosato. All rights reserved.
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Hurricane Katrina Exacts Another Toll: Enduring Depression

Health Officials Cite Stresses of Rebuilding

“These people don’t necessarily need a good psychiatrist,” Rigamer said. “They need a good contractor or someone to fix the ‘Road Home’ program and good leadership.”

By Peter Whoriskey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 23, 2007


NEW ORLEANS -- A gravel-voiced fire department captain, Michael Gowland says he had never been a big crier.

"I'm not a Neanderthal," he said last week, "but I wasn't much for tears."

Now, sometimes, he cries two or three hours at a stretch. Other times, his temper has exploded, prompting him one day to pick up a crescent wrench and chase an auto mechanic around a garage. Even more perplexing to him, the once devout Roman Catholic now wonders "if there's anything out there."

"If anyone had told me before that depression could bring me this low, I'd have said they were a phony," Gowland, 46, married and a father of three, said during a break from fixing his flooded home. "Everything bothers me."

More than two years after the storm, it is not Hurricane Katrina itself but the persistent frustrations of the delayed recovery that are exacting a high psychological toll on people who never before had such troubles, psychiatrists and a major study say. A burst of adrenaline and hope propelled many here through the first months but, with so many neighborhoods still semi-deserted, inspiration has ended.

Calls to a mental health hotline jumped after the storm and have remained high, organizers said. Psychiatrists report being overbooked, at least partly because demand has spiked. And the most thorough survey of the Gulf Coast's mental health recently showed that while signs of depression and other ills doubled after the hurricane, two years later, those levels have not subsided, they have risen.

"It's really stunning in juxtaposition to what these kinds of surveys have shown after other disasters, or after people have been raped or mugged," said Ronald C. Kessler, a professor of health-care policy at Harvard Medical School, who led the study. Typically, "people have a lot of trouble the first night and the first month afterward. Then you see a lot of improvement."

But, in New Orleans, the percentage of people reporting signs of severe mental illness, suicidal thoughts and post-traumatic stress disorder increased between March 2006 and the summer of 2007, the survey showed.

"A lot of people had this expectation in New Orleans that, 'Dammit, by next Mardis Gras, we're going to be back' . . . and then they weren't," Kessler said. "Then they said, 'By next year, we'll be back,' and they weren't. We're in this stage of where there are a lot of people just kind of giving up."

Times-Picayune columnist Chris Rose wrote about his own depression in a widely discussed newspaper article published in October and then in his recent book, "1 Dead in Attic." The article struck a chord.

"I probably amassed 3,000 e-mails from people who felt like me," Rose said. "Now they come up to me in the grocery store and tell me what meds they're on. I say, 'Congratulations.' "

Depression is often discussed in terms of chemical causes, but interviews with psychiatrists and patients here ascribed its appearance in post-Katrina New Orleans to the stresses of rebuilding.

Because of the hurricane, many have lost or changed jobs. Thousands are still living in cramped FEMA trailers and many are living in semi-deserted streets.

"If you've lost your job, you've lost your house and you've lost your friends -- well, you ought to be depressed, man, or else you're out of touch with reality," said psychiatrist Elmore Rigamer, the medical director for Catholic Charities in New Orleans, which runs five city mental health clinics.

"What we can do for these folks is to make them understand that they're not crazy," Rigamer said. "And then they can explain it to their wives and husbands."

Lyn Byrne, 58, a physical therapist, lost her Gentilly home to the flooding. Before the storm, she said recently: "I was a regular person. I had a house. I had friends, I had book clubs, I had Monday night chick flicks. I had a church."

Byrne was fine until she moved back to New Orleans more than a year after the storm to try to salvage her property.

Since then, she has lost more than 30 pounds. She often found herself crying on a whim, nervous about everything, and suddenly uninterested in socializing.

When the Tylenol PM stopped putting her to sleep, she sought out a psychiatrist and, while she had just expected to get sleeping pills, she wound up talking and crying for two hours. The psychiatrist put her on doses of Zoloft and other antidepressants -- then ratcheted up the dosages.

In telling her story, she asks: "How could I not end up anxious and depressed?"

Her troubles began with the FEMA trailer. Three times she flew down from New York, where she was staying with her mother, for an appointment with the federal contractor who was supposed to deliver the trailer to her front yard.

The contractor missed each appointment.

Finally the trailer arrived. But with only one in four of her neighbors back, her old neighborhood is a forlorn and sometimes threatening place. Her car has been stolen twice from the driveway. Once, while she was sleeping in her trailer, burglars broke in and stole her purse and other personal items.

Now before she goes to sleep at night, she hangs water jugs off the window latches and puts the trash can beside the front door in hopes of foiling the next intruder.

"Do you think I'm having mental issues yet? Wait -- it gets better," she said.

Her biggest problem is trying to finance her house repairs and escape the trailer: Like thousands of others in Louisiana, Byrne did not have enough insurance.

She has received $40,000 from her flood and homeowner's insurance policies, but a contractor told her the repairs would cost $133,000.

The state's "Road Home" program is supposed to provide financial aid for people in her situation. Yet, although she was one of the first to apply, she still has not received a check.

Two years after the flooding, Byrne has no idea when she will ever get out of the trailer or stop driving around with laundry in the car in search of an open laundromat, and whether her friends and church, St. Raphael's Catholic, will return.

"People say, 'Oh, we're coming back -- look at the French Quarter or Magazine Street.' But I don't live there. Where I live, there's no church and no laundromat and no people. It's just so tragic, and it keeps getting sadder and sadder."

According to the Harvard survey, many people in New Orleans feel the same way.

Between March 2006 -- six months after the storm -- and summer 2007, the number of people reporting signs of serious mental illness rose from 11 percent to 14 percent. Before the storm it had been about 6 percent.

Similarly, the number of people who reported thoughts of suicide rose from 3 to 8 percent in New Orleans.

"There's more depression, more financial problems, more marital conflict, more thoughts of suicide," said Daphne Glindmeyer, a New Orleans psychiatrist who is president of the Louisiana Psychiatric Medicine Association. "And a lot of it is in people who never had any trouble before."

Interviews with psychiatrists turn up story after story of people with no history of depression plunged into mental anguish deep enough to require treatment.

A teenager living in a trailer turns homicidal. A woman whose mother died in the car during an evacuation -- and then could not be taken to funeral home -- suffers post-traumatic stress disorder. A firefighter involved in dozens of rescues seethes with anger at the region's inability to come back.

"These people don't necessarily need a good psychiatrist," Rigamer said. "They need a good contractor or someone to fix the 'Road Home' program and good leadership."

News assistant Jill F. Bartscht contributed to this report.

The Washington Post originally published this article on September 22, 2007.


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First trip to Coast since Katrina packs wallop on heart

9/23/2007
Daily Journal
by Leslie Criss

“We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.”

– Winston Churchill

My trip to the Mississippi Gulf Coast two weekends ago was my first since Katrina ravaged the place I called home for nearly six years.

And though I’d seen the film footage and photographs, none adequately prepared me.

In the two years since the hurricane devastated the area, the clean-up effort has been ongoing. The debris has, for the most part, disappeared.

But there remains mile after mile of empty lots where grand old houses once stood – a true and tragic testament to the power of nature.

Weeks after the storm, a friend brought me a photograph of the property on Ocean Springs’ Front Beach where once stood among majestic oaks a beautiful old house, complete with cottage. It’s where I – and three dear friends – lived during our teaching years.

The photo made me sad. But when I rode by the place two weeks ago, the tears came. The land is clear, except for a single column of concrete and brick that once bordered a staircase.

Later in the day, two friends drove me along Highway 90 from Biloxi to Gulfport. And I kept having to ask where we were. Except for the lighthouse and a battered Edgewater Mall, no landmarks exist.

When I talked to folks who’ve lived on the Coast all their lives, most grew sadly pensive when they spoke of Katrina and their personal losses. Others spoke of their lives now lived in FEMA trailers as they continue to wait for funds to repair or rebuild.
Many are hopeful for the future of the Coast.

Others’ words are laced with bitterness. Most agree the pre-Katrina Coast will never again be.

Angrily, folks (including me) agree on something else, too: The national media continues to miss the story.

Sure, television and print reporters spent the days just after Katrina in this state of my birth. But then over in New Orleans, a city damaged mildly by a hurricane named Katrina, the levees broke. And those rushing waters pulled the collective curiosity of the media – and the concern of the nation – right into Louisiana.

Even now, two years later, when reporters talk about Katrina, it was the hurricane that devastated New Orleans. Mississippi is often mentioned as an afterthought.

Truth is, as I see it, the national media have missed out on some amazing stories by focusing all attention on our Louisiana neighbors. (And, no, I’m not saying New Orleans merited no attention.)

I can tell you that Coast native and “Good Morning, America” anchor Robin Roberts is a hero to a lot of Coast dwellers. “If not for her, we’d have been forgotten.” That’s what one person told me.

Maybe one day the national media will get it. I hope so. For there are still stories to be written and told about the kindness of strangers, the goodness of neighbors, the patience, perseverance and power of the people along the Coast.

Right here in Mississippi.

Contact Leslie Criss at leslie.criss@djournal.com or 678-1584.

Appeared originally in the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, 9/23/2007.

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Buy-outs may be ‘voluntary,’ but insurance a big question¯

By Mary G. Seiley
Sep 21, 2007, 17:56

Area officials are apparently taking a go-slow approach in reacting to state and federal plans for a buyout of flood-prone portions of Bay St. Louis.

Despite some loud pleas from the audience at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, council didn’t jump at the chance to go on record opposed to buyouts, voluntary or mandatory.

Instead, council endorsed a Hancock County Chamber of Commerce resolution on the matter.

The Chamber resolution, passed on Tuesday afternoon, doesn’t even have the word “buyout” in it. It urges coordination and cooperation of all governments involved. It also states that the draft Mississippi Coastal Improvement Plan is “negatively impacting recovery and rebuilding efforts by citizens, volunteer groups, faith based organizations, developers and investors…"

Much of the Chamber resolution outlines the extensive 20-year plans under development now in the Bay, Waveland and Hancock County, all considering future ways to mitigate storm damages.

Council members said they’ll go on record with some resolution of their own, waiting until the Oct.8 and Oct. 9 meetings to revisit the issue.

Some citizens are saying voluntary buyouts may be just the thing this area needs. Others are saying the program would devastate the local economy.

The Mississippi Department of Marine Resources and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers held a public meting Monday on the topic, drawing more than 500 local residents and politicians. At that meeting, DMR’s director, Dr. Bill Walker, stressed repeatedly that the buyouts under consideration would be voluntary only.

The idea, he said, is for a federal buyout of areas which are so flood prone they can’t be protected by physical structures such as levees and seawalls. The government would buy up those areas -- such as Cedar Point and Shoreline Park, and forever restrict structural development on them.

Owners would be given cash for their land and money to build homes on safer grounds, he said. The huge area between Bayou La Croix and Julia Street, all along Highway 603, contains high-risk areas labeled for an “accelerated buyout” program, and “potential“ buyouts later.

Even as the vast majority of citizens railed against such a plan Monday, there were a few who spoke up saying it’s probably a good idea.

One said so at Tuesday’s meeting. Debra Kennedy told City Council that some property owners in the flood prone zones won’t be able to sell their lands on the private market. At least the buyout would put “money in their pockets” to build in a safer place.

One big, unanswered question concerns whether property owners who turn down a buyout offer would be able to buy federal Flood Insurance in the future. Further, some doubt that private homeowner insurance will be affordable in such areas, especially after the new federal flood maps are issued.

“If they offered me a buyout and I say no, there’s a possibility my insurance rates will go sky high and I can’t stay anyway,” said Sam Moore to council.

Another citizen Bob Wingate, said it’s useless to pass a resolution opposing mandatory buyouts, when DMR insists their proposal is for voluntary participation only.

Ward 1 councilmember Doug Seal, whose Cedar Point territory was wiped out by Katrina, said a voluntary buyout program has been going on there for years. “Land in Cedar Point has been bought…because of repetitive (flood) losses,“ he said. “This is not new. It’s just the magnitude of it."

The Chamber’s resolution urges President George W. Bush, Gov. Haley Barbour and members of Congress to require that any plans by the DMR or Corps in the future “only include those that are designated as appropriate through the city of Bay St. Louis, city of Waveland and Hancock County comprehensive plans.

“This effort would restore faith in the community by citizens, volunteers, business owners and investors.”

Real Estate broker Camille Tate said the Chamber originally voted to push that the buyout plan be voluntary only. “They had it in there but took it out,” she said.

And Tate said as it stands, the high cost of insurance has slowed area sales to a crawl. “As far as prices being elevated right now, they may be. But (properties) ain’t selling.”

Council initially endorsed the Chamber resolution, but rescinded it as debate erupted over whether the city should denounce mandatory buyouts. Some in the audience said they should denounce voluntary buyout too.

Former City Attorney John Scafide warned that any such vote now is premature. He said he has “a sneaking suspicion” that there’s a connection between the draft federal plan and the new Base Flood Elevation maps that are in the wings.

If those new maps make it virtually impossible to build single family homes in the areas at issue, he said, “you may want to see voluntary buyouts as the only way out for some people.”

Taking the opposite view was Carroll Gordan, father-in-law of Rep. Gene Taylor. “Take it out, mandatory or voluntary. Take it out. It’s going to kill you,” Gordan said of the buyout idea.

Council finally agreed to undo whatever motions and votes they had taken during the night and take their time in writing a separate resolution.

Council members each went on record with preliminary positions. At-large council member Bill Taylor said he’s opposed to mandatory buyouts and any “wholesale buyouts” in general. Agreeing with that was Ward 4’s council member Bobby Compretta, but both said they weren’t sure they’d want to oppose voluntary buyouts.

Seal said he too opposes mandatory buyouts, but added many other parts of the federal plan are good and need to be considered, such as new elevations and rebuilding a stronger community. “We can’t opt out of the program,” said Seal. “We do have to mitigate” the dangers of living on the Coast. He also questioned “at what point” will America lose interest in this area’s flooding problems.

“It’s America,” he said, “and there are people who want to sell out now. But…what happens if everybody sells? It needs to be looked at carefully.”

>Ward 3’s Jeffery Reed also opposed mandatory buyouts. “But…I think people have the right to do what they want to. This is America. You own something, I think you have the right to do what you want to with it.”

Ward 2’s James C. Thriffiley III, said if council doesn’t go on record against a mandatory buyout, “it puts the breaks on development and…destroys builder incentives.”



© Copyright 2007 Bay St. Louis Newspapers, Inc.

The Sea Coast Echo published the original article Septebmer 21, 2007.

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Religious leaders protest port plan

Housing money to expand port

By PRISCILLA FRULLA
pfrulla@sunherald.com
Posted on Thu, Sep. 20, 2007

BILOXI --More than a dozen religious leaders issued a challenge to Gov. Haley Barbour on Wednesday, giving him 24 hours to answer their protests to a plan that would use housing recovery funds to expand the Port of Gulfport.

The Mississippi Coast Interfaith Disaster Task Force held a meeting at the Saenger Theater urging residents to comment on the Mississippi Development Authority plan announced Sept. 7 to redirect $600 million of Community Development Block Funds allocated for the Homeowner Assistance Program to rebuild the port.

"Our objective is to ensure the $600 million is used for its intended purpose," said pastor Jason Johnson of the Abundant Life Evangelical Church of Biloxi.

Pastor Larry Hawkins of the Union Baptist Missionary Baptist Church of Pascagoula said he expects a response from Barbour today when he comes to the Saenger for a debate with gubernatorial candidate John Eaves.

"Unmet needs cannot continue to go unmet," said Hawkins.

Faith-based organizations have been bearing the burden of unmet housing needs, Hawkins said. The state's assistance program has been flawed from the start, he said.

The MDA issued a statement following the meeting: "The Port of Gulfport recovery is part of the plan that the governor submitted to Congress, the President and the Legislature in November 2005 to obtain this recovery funding. We're using these funds to rebuild and upgrade the Port of Gulfport to restore jobs and ultimately impact the Coast's economy. We have created and implemented first-of-their-kind programs for both homeowners and renters, and we will continue to do so."

Johnson said the group does not oppose economic development or expansion of the port, but it wants the state to find other funds for the project. He said the group is facing a difficult battle.

"I call it Goliath," Johnson said.

Pastor Darrell Taylor of the Prince of Peace Baptist Church said the task force has collected more than 2,000 signatures on a petition opposing the MDA plan.

The Sun Herald originally published this article on September 20, 2007.

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Using crayons to ease the trauma of hurricane Katrina

By Shaila Dewan

Published: September 17, 2007

BAKER, Louisiana: One of the most common images in children's art is the house: a square, topped by a pointy roof, outfitted with doors and windows.

So Karla Leopold, an art therapist from California, was intrigued when she noticed that for many of the young victims of Hurricane Katrina, the house had morphed into a triangle.

"At first we thought it was a fluke, but we saw it repeatedly in children of all ages," said Leopold, who with a team of therapists has made nine visits to Renaissance Village here, the largest trailer park for Katrina evacuees, to work with children. "Then we realized the internal schema of these children had changed. They weren't drawing the house as a place of safety. They were drawing the roof."

Countless articles and at least five major studies have focused on the lasting trauma experienced by Hurricane Katrina survivors, warning of anxiety, difficulty in school, even suicidal impulses. But few things illustrate the impact as effectively as the art that has come out of sessions under the large white tent that is the only community gathering spot at Renaissance Village, a gravel-covered former cow pasture with high truancy rates and little to occupy youngsters who do not know when, or if, they will return home.

Even now the children's drawings are populated by alligators, dead birds, helicopters and rescue boats. At a session in May one 8-year-old, Brittney Barbarin, drew a swimming pool full of squiggly black lines. Asked who was in the pool, she replied, "Snakes."

The drawings, photographs and sculptures, about 50 of which went on display Sunday at the New Orleans Museum of Art, are a good indicator of how children are coping, said Irwin Redlener, the co-founder of the Children's Health Fund, which has provided mobile mental health clinics to some families along the Gulf Coast. The art also shows that the trauma did not end with the hurricane.

"The real prescription for these families is to get them back into a normal community," Redlener said. "We're treading water doing these things, when I'd like to take my prescription pad and write, 'Home.' "

On Saturday a wild commotion greeted the arrival of the art therapists, who were handing out T-shirts and registering families for a bus trip to the museum the next day for the exhibition, "Katrina Through the Eyes of Children," which runs through Oct. 7. The therapists asked the children to draw two pictures each, and then kept an eye out for indicators of deep disturbance, like a picture by Trinity Williams, 7, that showed a figure swimming with a shark.

Turbulent blue lines covered the entire paper.

Trinity is an energetic child who likes to sing and dance, and play tricks like pulling her name tag off and plastering it across her mouth. Leopold coaxed her to sit at a picnic table and add things to the drawing that could help the swimmer: a pool float, an adult in a boat, a yellow sun.

Trinity has been in treatment for hyperactivity since the storm, said Donna Azeez, who is rearing Trinity. When the art therapists visit, Azeez said, Trinity will be "a lot calmer, she'll be smiling."

Even the adults participate, drawing churches, front porches, trees and, in one session, a picture of the trailer park with one palatial house and swimming pool in its midst. Many, both adults and children, draw at a level that is years below what is expected at their age, partly as a result of traumatic regression.

On Saturday, Lashawn Wells, 13, presented a drawing of three stick figures in a scribble of gray water: his mother, sister and brother, their arms up in the air. "Where are you?" Leopold asked.

"I don't want to be in the picture," Lashawn muttered.

Ultimately, Lashawn added himself, a life jacket, a road for running away and a bridge.

Leopold handed him a blank sheet of paper and asked what safe place was waiting for him on the other side of the bridge. "The Superdome?" Lashawn asked tentatively. "Reliant Center?"

Eventually he changed his mind, deciding to draw a house, adding doors, windows, a dresser and, with Leopold's gentle urging, other things he wanted for feeling safe, including a cellphone and a gun. The house was shaped like a triangle.

Leopold said the triangle houses were not drawn solely by children who were rescued from rooftops. "This is the collective unconscious," she said.

Unlike many who have tried to help Katrina evacuees, the art therapists have returned again and again, earning the trust of a community of about 400 families that feels isolated and forgotten.

They have taught the children to knit, furnished them with journals and digital cameras, even taken a lucky few to the Idyllwild Arts Summer Program in California. They have devoted considerable time to letting the children construct and decorate houses and cities, to literally rebuild.

One elaborate three-dimensional version of New Orleans, a community effort built of cardboard boxes that included streets, a church and even a graveyard, was reduced to a soggy mess by a rainstorm. The next day the children began to rebuild.

Rosie O'Donnell's For All Kids Foundation financed the first year of the therapy program; a recent $1 million grant from the country music stars Faith Hill and Tim McGraw will help it continue. Art has piled up in a storage unit in nearby Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and in the garage of Leo Bonamy, a project volunteer.

Leopold said that there are signs of recovery in the children's drawings, but not many. When the American Art Therapy Association held its annual convention in New Orleans last year, she said the organizers asked for examples that were colorful and hopeful. "We didn't have any," she said.

But there are subtle indications: In 2005 Cheryl Porter, 17, drew the car in which she and her family escaped. In the picture Saturday the car was safe in a garage. "If I don't draw, I get in trouble," Cheryl said.

On Sunday three buses filled with families from Renaissance Village headed for the museum, where they would be met in the large, columned lobby with lemonade, cookies and a jazz piano player. As the bus neared the museum, 7-year-old Corielle Mutin spotted Bayou St. John, where two kayakers paddled in the afternoon sun.

"I'm scared," she said, "of the water."

The International Herald Tribune published this article on September 17, 2007.

Copyright © 2007 the International Herald Tribune All rights reserved

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'Katrina Sign Maker' Joe De Benvenutti Tells His State Farm Story

Sign in Joe De and Betty Benvenutti's front lawn on Beach Blvd, Bay St. Louis, Miss.

by Ana Maria

While expressing tremendous gratitude and appreciation to all the volunteers and church groups who came to help and who arrived in Katrina Land long before FEMA and the insurance companies, Joe De also expressed his frustration with being able to collect on his insurance premiums that they've been paying faithfully. Joe De and Betty hired an attorney to sue State Farm to pay on the wind coverage on which they've been paying their premiums.

Watch Joe De as he tells his story to Kevin Davis of KETY-TV, Santa Barbara.

Speaking what is in the hearts and minds of the many that Katrina impacted, Joe De said,

"All we want is what we paid for so we can get on with our lives."

Joe De himself works in the insurance industry. Naturally, he and his wife Betty were insured to the hilt.

Although homeowner policies provide for transition housing costs, because State Farm and other insurance companies refused to acknowledge their financial obligations for wind damage, the insurance industry essentially pawned off their housing costs to the federal taxpayers. Thus the tremendous number of FEMA trailers.

In the video, Joe De Benvenutti talks with Kevin Davis, a young and talented production assistant who hopes to break into reporting. Joe De provides a tour of his FEMA trailer as he talks about his family's life in a FEMA trailer some two years after Katrina took their 186 year old Bay St. Louis home on the beach.

Joe De and his wife Betty paid their premiums faithfully and, like homeowners all over the nation, simply expect that loyalty returned in the form of keeping their end of the good neighbor bargain. Joe De also shares the trouble he and his wife have had with their insurance company, State Farm. He's a delightful character who speaks his mind directly with that typical Bay St. Louis charm.

Kevin Davis works for KEYT -TV, an ABC affiliate in Santa Barbara, CA, and is currently looking for his first reporting job. Kevin can be reached at 925-788-1803 and kdavis2600@gmail.com.

© 2007 Ana Maria Rosato. All rights reserved.
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