Congress: A New Direction For The Gulf Coast

Honoring Our Promises, Establishing A Partnership for the Future


Last August, House Democrats traveled to the Gulf Coast on the solemn occasion of the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Their mission was to do the work the Republican-led Congress and the Administration were not doing--determine what resources the region needed to rebuild and restore their communities. They met with local officials and stakeholders and took home with them a list of outstanding needs for the region that the lawmakers were committed to providing.

A new Democratic majority in 2007 provided an opportunity to deliver on those promises, but their efforts were met with strong opposition from the White House.

Despite a presidential veto and Republican obstruction, in the first seven moths of a new Democratic majority the 110th Congress was able to send the president Katrina recovery legislation that was signed into law including:

• waiving the local matching requirement under the Stafford Act, legislation which potentially has the greatest positive impact, saving the region $1.9 billion and allowing work to begin on 20,000 stalled projects;
• appropriating $6.4 billion in assistance which helped bolster levees, restore the coastline, recruit teachers, keep schools open, maintain health facilities, assist farmers and fishermen, provide housing assistance, assist small businesses, retain law enforcement and other essential government employees; and
• additionally, providing much-needed congressional oversight-House Committees have held over 30 hearings on Katrina recovery.

[See Action in the 110th Congress on Katrina recovery]

On August 12, 2007, House Democrats returned to the Gulf Coast, just prior to the Second Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, to assess the progress in the region and determine what needs remained. Their productive three day trip brought them to many places in Mississippi and New Orleans, including:

• Pass Christian Mississippi, where the entire school district is
• located on the campus on the one elementary school that survived the storm;
• Bay St. Louis Mississippi, where at a standing-room-only town hall meeting the community discussed their inability to rebuild because insurance companies would not pay claims on wind damage to homes that were also damaged by flood waters;
• the New Orleans Sewereage and Water Board where the system is on the brink of failure because of the emergency measures executed after Hurricane Katrina on an already aging system; and
• Chalmette, in St. Bernard Parish, where Karen Vinsanau was beginning to rebuild with a Road Home grant. [see blogs]
  

House Democrats recommitted themselves to a New Direction for the Gulf Coast and a partnership for the future. They outlined a list of legislative priorities to improve housing, infrastructure, health care, and education, reform the insurance industry and FEMA bureaucracy, including:

• Comprehensive housing assistance including aid for rental, public and low-income housing [HR 1227]
• An estimated $550 million under the first year of the Federal Housing Reform Act [HR 1427, Pending in House-Senate Conference]
• Water Resources Development Act [WRDA], which is under veto threat but would bolster coastal levees and provide funding for coastal restoration [Reported out of conference, HR 1495]
• Disaster relief assistance for small businesses [HR 1468, and the RECOVER Act HR 1361]

[See new commitments]

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Study shows more Hurricane Katrina survivors contemplate suicide

Associated Press - August 22, 2007 3:23 AM ET

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The longer it takes to recover from Hurricane Katrina, the more Gulf Coast residents are suffering post-traumatic stress or even thinking seriously about suicide.

That's the conclusion of a survey by the Hurricane Katrina Community Advisory Group.

The survey is a follow-up to one done six months after the hurricane. It shows that eight percent of people in the New Orleans area have contemplated suicide. That's nearly triple the rate right after the storm.

A psychologist says the underlying optimism in the months after the storm has worn thin. The earlier report had warned about that possibility if rebuilding didn't keep pace with expectations.

And the recovery has been agonizingly slow, especially in New Orleans. In addition to losses due directly to the hurricane, such problems as violent crime and poor schools have added to the distress.

Original article here.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Hurricane George: How the White House Drowned New Orleans

Note from A.M. in the Morning! MUST read. An internationally acclaimed award-winning investigative journalist who works for the BBC, Greg Palast is a native Californian whose work also broke the story on the stolen 2000 election. I admire, trust, and respect Palast's brilliant investigative journalism, and he's a personal friend as well.

Originally published August 23rd, 2007 at GregPalast.Com

by Greg Palast
August 23, 2007

It’s been two years. And America’s media is about to have another tear-gasm over New Orleans. Maybe Anderson Cooper will weep again. The big networks will float into the moldering corpse of the city and give you uplifting stories about rebuilding and hope.

Now, let’s cut through the cry-baby crap. Here’s what happened two years ago - and what’s happening now.

This is what an inside source told me. And it makes me sick:

“By midnight on Monday, the White House knew. Monday night I was at the state Emergency Operations Center and nobody was aware that the levees had breeched. Nobody.”

The charge is devastating: That, on August 29, 2005,

the White House withheld from the state police the information that New Orleans was about to flood. From almost any other source, I would not have believed it. But this was not just any source. The whistle-blower is Dr. Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, the chief technician advising the state on saving lives during Katrina.

I’d come to van Heerden about another matter, but in our talks, it was clear he had something he wanted to say, and it was a big one. He charged that the White House, FEMA and the Army Corp hid, for critical hours, their discovery that the levees surrounding New Orleans were cracking, about to burst and drown the city.

Understand that Katrina never hit New Orleans. The hurricane swung east of the city, so the state evacuation directors assumed New Orleans was now safe - and evacuation could slow while emergency efforts moved east with the storm.

But unknown to the state, in those crucial hours on Monday, the federal government’s helicopters had filmed the cracks that would become walls of death by Tuesday.

Van Heerden revealed:

“FEMA knew at 11 o’clock on Monday that the levees had breeched. At 2p.m. they flew over he 17th Street Canal and took video of the breech.”

Question: “So the White House wouldn’t tell you the levees had breeched?”

Dr. Van Heerden: “They didn’t tell nobody knew. The Corps of Engineers knew. FEMA knew. None of us knew.”

I could not get the White House gang to respond to the charges.

That leaves the big, big question: WHY? Why on earth would the White House not tell the city to get the remaining folks out of there?

The answer: cost. Political and financial cost. A hurricane is an act of God - but a catastrophic failure of the levees is a act of Bush. That is, under law dating back to 1935, a breech of the federal levee system makes the damage - and the deaths - a federal responsibility. That means, as van Heeden points out, that “these people must be compensated.”

The federal government, by law, must build and maintain the Mississippi levees to withstand known dangers - or pay the price when they fail.

Indeed, that was the rule applied in the storms that hit Westhampton Dunes, New York, in 1992. There, when federal sea barriers failed, the flood waters wiped away 190 homes. The feds rebuilt them from the public treasury. But these were not just any homes. They are worth an average of $3 million apiece the summer homes of movie stars and celebrity speculators.


There were no movie stars floating face down in the Lower Ninth Ward nor in Lakeview nor St. Bernard Parish. For the ‘luvvies’ of Westhampton Dunes, the federal government even trucked in sand to replace the beaches. But for New Orleans’ survivors, there’s the aluminum gulag of FEMA trailer parts. Today, two years later, 89,000 families still live in this mobile home Guantanamo - with no plan whatsoever for their return.

And what was the effect of the White House’s self-serving delay?

I spoke with van Heerden in his university office. The computer model of the hurricane flashed quietly as I waited for him to answer. Then he said, “Fifteen hundred people drowned. That’s the bottom line.”

They could have survived Hurricane Katrina. But they got no mercy from Hurricane George.

**********
For the rest of the story, get the DVD, “BIG EASY TO BIG EMPTY: The Untold Story of the Drowning of New Orleans,” as reported by Greg Palast from Louisiana for Democracy Now - with Amy Goodman and the music of “the city that care forgot.” Watch a clip on our Youtube page.

And read the full story of our investigation in the added chapter on New Orleans in the new paperback edition of “Armed Madhouse: from Baghdad to New Orleans - Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild.” Click here to donate to our Investigative Fund and receive a book signed by Greg Palast as a gift from us.

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Optimism and Anger in Post-Katrina Living

by Ana Maria

Yesterday, the Gulf Coast Business Council released Two Years After Katrina, which reports on the status of our recovery down here. The Biloxi Sun Herald, the only daily newspaper along the Mississippi Gulf Coast aptly titled its headlined article Keeping it positive.

As is often shown in our own lives, keeping an upbeat, appreciative, and grateful attitude for what has been done for us and for what we have is always a good thing and generally generates more for which to be grateful and appreciative. It’s a mystical like quality that seems to magnetize our energy field to attract more of the same. The opposite is also the case. Coming off as ungrateful for anything often engenders a negative response from those around us giving us more for which we are ungrateful. Funny how life works that way.

I find myself juggling a delicate balance knowing of these mysteries. On the one hand, I'm respectful of all that the volunteers, the residents, and the resident's friends and family members have done. What a blessing. More of these good graces, please.

On the other hand, I’m livid that Big Insurance has apparently deliberately chosen to stiff its Katrina customers so it can pocket the premiums everyone has paid over the years. I’m livid that George W. Bush has failed miserably to ensure that every dime needed—from FEMA, HUD, Corps of Engineers, etc.—was immediately appropriated and easily drawn down to where the money can be spent directly for its intended purposes.

I’m livid that Bush has spent billions and billions rebuilding Iraq, a country that he destroyed for no reason while here in the United States we have an entire region still barely moving in the direction of rebuilding. I’m livid that Bush has not done anything substantive to move his buddies in the insurance industry in the direction of paying fully on the legitimate claims that Katrina’s home and business owners have submitted.

Keeping a mindful eye on the solution to these challenges and following steps to rectify the situation are imperative lest we get caught up in the whirlwind of talking and thinking only about what it is we don't like and staying stuck in "what is" rather than in pursuing the solution and making headway in that direction.

It's tough, though, especially with the stress of post-Katrina life. to which I’m a relative newcomer. I still have that fire in the belly burning in my soul. I believe that things could be better, should be better. Though I have only recently stepped into daily living inside the Katrina-ravaged region, even I have already become acclimated to the destruction and devastation all around me more than I had thought I had and the stress of it is beginning to show.

For example, when booking at a motel inside Katrina Land, I had specifically stated that I needed Internet service. "Yes, ma’am, we have it." Great!

So, when I plugged in my computer and the Internet service wasn’t there, I was not a happy camper. No problem. I’ll call, someone will repair the problem, and I’ll be up and running in just a bit.

Uh…not exactly.

The front desk staff said that my particular room didn't have Internet service. What ensued demonstrated clearly to me that the stress of post-Katrina life had finally begun to get to me.

Unhappy as all get out, I went to the front desk and then asked to speak to the manager, who had just walked up. I began my diatribe about my initial request, I need the service to work, blah, blah, blah.

Now picture this. I’m a tiny woman with a bundle of energy and a voice I can project for quite a long way. I was neither quiet nor exactly the epitome of Miss Manners.

The manager and two front desk staffers just watched as I went into a bit of a tirade over the service.

“What do you mean it may be up tomorrow or next week or in a couple of weeks?!!!” I demanded.

Calmly, the manager said that ever since Katrina, they haven’t been able to accurately speculate when a repair contractor will show up even when contractors say they will show up.

Bam! It hit me like a ton of bricks. Oh. Yeah. I’m thinking as if this is in the “outside” world.

Katrina. It’s a bit like being inside of Alice in Wonderland. What’s up is down and all around.

I immediately thought about my family’s home and how long it had taken to find a great contractor we trusted to work on it and then how much time it’s taken to get on his schedule plus coordinating it with our own schedule with us having to figure out when we’ll get to the prep work, etc. and so forth.

Instant calm down on my part. My manners returned. That anger and upset that had just blown up all over those women? Evaporated.

I was embarrassed for my enormous insensitivity and failure to "get it" before being . . . extremely unpleasant, to put it mildly.

Yes, of course, I have to be mindful that I have work to do requiring Internet access, but still. I “got it” at yet another level. Post-Katrina life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The manager put me in another room where the wireless Internet service worked just fine, and she helped with the move mentioning that she had seen my younger brother earlier. Huh? “You know my brother?” I asked. Not just that one. She knows one of my older brothers, too. She called him by a childhood name, which meant that she’s known my family for decades. More humility and embarrassment. I felt awful!

After I moved in to the room, I went to her and apologized profusely. She told me that I wasn’t that bad. “Really, not that bad?” I thought. Answering the question in my head, she continued by saying that when people begin to get upset, they just let people blow. It’s Katrina. It gets to everyone. And, yes, she said that compared to others, I wasn’t bad. Oh.

I told her that I after I treated them so horribly, I wanted to go home and cook something for them as a peace offering, but the house wasn’t in any condition for me to go cook in it. She laughed.

But life here in Katrina isn’t funny. When even I am blowing from the stress—and I’ve been here 5 ½ months, things are bad off. I didn’t go through Katrina. I didn’t deal with the yuck and the mud, the stench and the stark conditions that were everywhere for months on end. Yet, the stress of life here is getting to me. Things shouldn't be this way. We should be nearing completion, not barely beginning.

Pouring Oil on the Fire
In the middle of the emotional turmoil that is everywhere in Katrina Land, I’m “graced” with reading articles like this one titled Should Tax Dollars Keep Rebuilding Risky Areas?

I begin to seethe inside. Sure, institute better developer requirements. That’s sound. Fine. I’m not talking about that.

Personally, I have always wanted to liv on a beach, to look out my window and see the sand and water. I want a big screened in porch on the backside overlooking a massive yard with big oak trees throughout it. On the front porch, I want a big swing. When I get that--and I have every intention of having it, I will find the absolutely best hurricane proof architectural plans around. That is what I will build--regardless of whether local standards may require less. It is what I have always wanted. Now that I'm back home, I'm going to have it.

New a fabulous standards are not what I'm concerned about.

I’m talking about the notion that tax dollars shouldn’t be used to help and the implication that insurance companies are right to stiff us. Kind of a “serves you right for living there” attitude in articles like that and comments that are along the same lines. That's what I'm talking about.

The questions that come to my mind are these.

1. And just what part of paradise do you live in where the federal, state, county, or local government has not had to assist in any way what so ever and where insurance is unnecessary because everything goes along smashingly?

2. Where is this paradise inside the US where there not a blizzard, tornado, earthquake, or hurricane . . . and a place where anyone would want to live?

Yeah, that’s what I thought. La la land.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency reports that 55% of Americans live within 50 miles of our nation’s gloriously beautiful coastlines. Where then are we to move our homes, families, communities, places of worship, jobs, and friends? Come on, now, where’s the plan? No plan? OK, you and yours go first. Show us how it is done and where to move. Go on now. Be the example. Why the hesitation?

Ohhhh, it’s so easy to pass judgment, isn’t it?

Changing Tunes and Joining a New Choir
U.S. Senator Trent Lott has had a lifetime of apologizing for corporate greed at the expense of little guys. Surely, we could have expected him to join in with the rest of the crowd criticizing the use of tax dollars to rebuild homes, businesses, communities, places of worship, schools. After Katrina left only a slab of his home, he found out that even as a bigwig in the Republican Party, he would be treated just as poorly as the next guy.

Then, Lott began to sing a different tune and join a new choir. All I can say is that he’s got a lovely voice and we’re happy to have him join in. [The man does have a wonderful singing voice. ]

Home of U.S. Senator Trent Lott (R-MS) in Pascagoula, Miss. The house is gone. The land swept clear. Photo by Gulf Coast News.

When Republican U.S. Senator Trent Lott and Democratic Congressman Gene Taylor both have had to sue their insurance carrier to get any money from the homeowners’ policies wind coverage provisions, something way beyond the average person’s grasp is strangling the life out of folks. Lott has been a vociferous critic of lawyers who fight for the little guy. He is singing a slightly different tune today. To represent them in their lawsuits, both Lott and Taylor hired attorney Dicky Scruggs, Lott’s brother-in-law.

I hope that those who advocate some form of financially starving us into migrating elsewhere will come to a different conclusion before they find themselves in need of a hand up to get back on their feet and returning to the humming of their lives.

In the spirit of where I was born and raised and where I now once again reside, I'm hopeful . . . and pray that even they don't have to experience this unnecessary post-Katrina chaos and madness brought on by corporate insurance industry greed and deliberate neglect from Bush's Administration.

Throughout my lifetime, my mother has said, “It all depends on whose ox is being gored.” Well Katrina has certainly made that one obvious.

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Insurers being sued over Katrina

Five US insurance companies are being accused of trying to trick Hurricane Katrina survivors out of millions of dollars in damage payouts.

The claim has been made by Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood who has launched legal proceedings.

He said representatives for the firms had been asking people to sign forms saying they sustained flood damage, which is not covered by their policies.

All five companies have strongly denied the accusations.

"I want the insurance companies to pay what they actually owe the people of Mississippi," he said, adding that he thought their representatives were "unconscionable".

Strong denials

The five companies being sued by Mr Hood are Nationwide Mutual Insurance, Mississippi Farm Bureau Insurance, State Farm Fire and Casualty, Allstate Property and Casualty, and United Services Automobile Association.

Mr Hood said that the firms are demanding policyholders sign the forms in order to gain an immediate cheque to cover living expenses.

"The allegations made by the Mississippi Attorney General are unfounded," said Nationwide Mutual Insurance.

"Our company is absolutely not asking policyholders to acknowledge damage is flood related in order to receive a cheque for living expenses."


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/business/4251394.stm

Published: 2005/09/16 07:04:59 GMT

© BBC MMVII

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Homeowner Feels Revictimized By Insurers

OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss., Aug. 22, 2007
(CBS) When Hurricane Katrina ripped through Ocean Springs, Miss., it tore Rodney Freeman's home and heart apart.

"We walked in, everything was rearranged. Black mud, crabs in the house. You know when you see crabs in the house something's wrong," he said tells CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian.

Still, Freeman figured he was one of the lucky ones. After all, he had double-barreled protection; $201,000 from Nationwide Mutual against wind damage and $115,000 in flood from Empire Fire and Marine. It was more than twice the replacement cost of his three-bedroom house and its contents.

But now, two years after Katrina, Freeman's house is still unfixed.

"Everybody don't pay homeowners insurance," Freeman says. "Some people can't have it, you know, but they need it. And you get it and it ain't worth nothing. Not nothing. It ain't worth nothing."

A single father raising a teenage son, Freeman has worked at the local post office for 21 years, faithfully paying his premiums.

Then Katrina hit.

---

First, adjusters for the flood insurer offered $4,003.12 to fix the kitchen. That was less than half of the $11,319.55 a local contractor estimated it would cost.

After 14 months of endless pleading, Freeman had what he felt were take-it-or-leave-it offers totaling $63,438.67 from both insurers. Again, it was less than half of what was needed to fix his home. He took it to attorney Danielle Brewer.

"He has lost money because they didn't pay him timely; because he was left with no choice but to hire an attorney to help," Brewer said.

But after legal fees and two years of living expenses, the money Brewer pried out of the insurers, Freeman says, was still not enough.

"It takes a Hurricane Katrina for everyone to discover that they really don't have protection they've paid for."

In statements, Nationwide says it is doing "all it can to resolve outstanding Katrina claims as quickly as possible," while Empire said it "it appropriately adjusted and paid Mr. Freeman's claim for flood loss."

The Mississippi Insurance Department says 98 percent of claims have been settled. But nobody is saying just how many of those folks are like Freeman, at a loss to explain the real cost of $316,000 in "coverage."

"That wasn't enough money. So I need the federal government to help me?" he asks. "Ain't that something."

© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.


Original article published here.


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Clarion-Ledger Poll On Big Insurance Revictimizing Katrina Survivors

Read the Clarion Ledger Opinion: Whistleblower: Judge victimizing Katrina victims?

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Whistleblower: Judge victimizing Katrina victims?

U.S. District Judge William Acker's behavior regarding the victims of Hurricane Katrina is most curious, and disturbing.

Acker ruled in June that Coast attorney Dickie Scruggs "willfully violated" a Dec. 8 preliminary injunction that required him to deliver "all documents" about State Farm Insurance Co. that whistleblowers Cori and Kerri Rigsby secretly copied after Katrina.

Last month, Acker named two special prosecutors in the case after U.S. Attorney Alice Martin declined to prosecute Scruggs, to whom the whistleblowers had given the documents that allegedly proved State Farm wrongly denied claims. Scruggs, who is suing State Farm, had turned the documents over to Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood.

Acker's insistence in this case seems to defy at least the spirit of federal whistleblower laws and even common sense.

It's perfectly reasonable for Scruggs to have obtained this material, as many south Mississippians have turned to Scruggs for help after their claims were denied or low-balled, including even U.S. Sen. Trent Lott.

Who's doing wrong here? The victims?

If the sisters saw documents that would indicate unfairness or illegality in an insurance company's dealings with victims, it would seem they have a moral obligation to report it to someone.

That's why federal and state whistleblower laws were written, to protect those taking ethical action from retaliation.

To be blunt, even heeding the letter of the law in regard to "theft" of documents, if the papers showed willful disregard for the misery of Katrina victims, would any jury convict them for trying to stop it?

Sometimes, there's justice, and sometimes there's the law. It would appear Acker is pursuing the law at the expense of justice, and the victims of Katrina.

Original Clarion Ledger Opinion published on August 23, 2007.

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Katrina propels insurance factor

Costs skyrocketed after storm
Posted on Sun, Aug. 19, 2007
By ANITA LEE
calee@sunherald.com

Property insurance, once a routine purchase, plays a bigger role in life decisions than it did before Hurricane Katrina.

Insurance had become a factor in what price people pay for houses, and where they live or do business. That's because insurance costs have skyrocketed and policies for hurricane damage are available near the waterfront only through the state wind pool, insurer of last resort for South Mississippi.

By design, wind-pool prices are higher than the private market because of the risk and because the state wants to encourage a private insurance market.

Katrina has focused Mississippi's attention, and to some extent the nation's, on insuring property against natural disasters. The media has followed heated litigation between insurance companies and policyholders. At one time, more than 1,000 lawsuits were pending in U.S. District Court in Gulfport, but that number has been whittled to less than 600.

Oxford attorney Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, of tobacco litigation fame, and his Scruggs Katrina Group team have taken on the most policyholder cases and settled claims with several insurance companies. Insurance companies stand by their claims-adjusting processes, and the courts have upheld their contention that they are not responsible for damage from tidal surge covered under the National Flood Insurance Program.

Debate continues over whether insurance companies also attributed wind damage to flooding to minimize their losses.

Insurance Commissioner George Dale, who has held office for almost 32 years, blamed his recent re-election defeat on Katrina and Scruggs, who pulled out his checkbook to campaign against the commissioner. Many policyholders on the Coast and Dale's opponents claim he has grown too friendly with the industry.

Several bills are pending in Congress aimed at changing the way insurance is regulated and sold. A multiple perils bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor would add wind coverage to the NFIP. Sen. Trent Lott is pushing to repeal the industry's exemption from anti-trust laws. Both sued their insurance company, State Farm, for refusing to cover their losses, but the cases have been settled.

Insurance rates and availability also will continue to make headlines. State legislators and wind-pool officials have just announced some relief. Those who build to the standards set by the Institute for Business & Home Safety, an organization sponsored by the insurance industry, can get a break on the price.

"The credits for fortified construction is a win- win situation," said wind-pool board member and insurance agent David Treutel. "The homeowner spends a little more on the front end, but recovers the extra construction cost over the years through premium credits. The wind pool can charge less for coverage since the building is less likely to suffer damage in a storm. It is a long-term solution for the insurance costs in coastal areas."

Also, consumers willing to assume more risk can lower their monthly premiums by agreeing to pay higher deductibles if their property is damaged by a hurricane.

The wind-pool board recently created new optional deductibles of 5 percent, 10 percent, 15 percent, and 20 percent. Some private companies are offering higher deductibles, too. Independent insurance agents can help consumers who want to comparison shop.

Wind-pool board member and insurance broker Bobby Portwood said, "A policyholder needs to carefully weigh how much deductible he can take on, but it is one more personal option that will soon be available."

Homeowner property insurance costs
Below is an example of coverage costs for a $166,000 home. Estimates are averages.

Dwelling valued at $166,000 (rates vary according to consumer credit rating, fire protection district and home construction)

Homeowners insurance, excluding wind and earthquake: Averages $500 to $700 a year

Wind and hail, Mississippi wind pool (rates vary according to home construction, location north or south of Interstate)2 percent named-storm deductible and $1,000 deductible on other windstorm damage.

First year premium: $2,168 south of I-10; $1,891 north of I-10 (includes $30 inspection fee for first year.)

Flood with $500 deductible $264 a year.

-MATTINA INSURANCE AGENCY INC.

---

© 2007 Sun Herald. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.sunherald.com
Original Sun Herald article published August 19, 2007.

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George Dale Should Thank Dickie Scruggs

by Ana Maria

The last two weeks have produced a great deal of hand wringing, teeth gnashing, and finger pointing regarding what caused Mississippi’s 32-year veteran insurance commissioner to loose his job. When Mississippi Democrats voted in the primary on August 7th, they fired George Dale and hired Gary Anderson in his place. Anderson has that fire in the belly to protect homeowners and business owners from Big Insurance.

Neither Dale nor some of his ardent supporters—many of whom are Republican and insurance big wigs—seem capable of believing that Dale could have lost his job all on his own and that Mississippi voters actually elected another man—an African American one at that. Perhaps all of this together stings Dale’s Old South blood that may be coursing through his veins.

The simple fact is that George Dale a sore loser. He gambled with his career, and he lost. His whining and crying? A bunch of sour grapes. Dale turned a blind eye to the fact that it was he who rolled out the red carpet that permitted insurance companies to run amok over Mississippi families and business owners. Under George Dale’s leadership, Mississippi has the third highest home owner’s insurance rates in the country. Not exactly something on which to proudly campaign.

In the aftermath of Katrina, Dale’s failure as an insurance commissioner is what forced many Mississippians to turn to attorneys to fight BIG INSURANCE. Dale forced Mississippians to go to court because he was too busy ignoring his responsibilities. On August 7th, Mississippi Democrats demonstrated what they thought of Dale’s performance and fired him. Good bye, George.

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

No, George, your mistake was not doing your job. Your mistake was not seeing to it that the insurance companies quickly and faithfully paid out on their wind insurance policies as they should have. I see why you campaigned for George W. Bush in 2004. The two of you have the same aversion for taking responsibility for what is rightfully yours and yours alone.

Has George Dale blamed himself? No. Following his electoral defeat, George Dale told the Biloxi Sun-Herald, “Two things that were major factors ... were Katrina and Dickie Scruggs. That's pretty much what it was.”

Huh? George Dale and his supporters are blaming trial lawyers in general and Dickie Scruggs in particular for his own electoral demise? And blaming Katrina, too? Well, if that don’t beat all.

How Katrina Drowned Dale’s Re-election
Katrina showed the world that the Dale wasn’t doing his job. Dale deliberately turned his back on the very people who needed him the most and for whom he could have and should have used the power of his elected office to help in their hour of greatest need. When Dale abandoned his responsibilities, others stepped up to the plate to protect families and business owners from the ravages of Big Insurance.

That “someone” was a group of “someones”, and they are called lawyers—trial lawyers. Thank GAWD for them. They are our hired guns and when we need one, we want the best of them. One of my very dearest friends is the former head of the trial lawyers association in California’s Silicon Valley whom I admire tremendously for his commitment to justice both inside and out of the courtroom. Like plenty of trial lawyers, Mohinder Mann is a great community leader who brings peace and justice into the situations with which he becomes involved.

When insurance companies began ripping off policyholders and George Dale snuggled ever so tightly to his corporate insurance friends, plenty of heroic trial lawyers stepped up to the plate—Scruggs Katrina Group,The Merlin Group, Ballducci, Mississippians . . . These men and women have helped protect Katrina’s families and businesses from being battered over the head and beaten up by Big Insurance’s slick corporate attorneys.

Had George Dale done his job, these law suits would have been unnecessary. The Scurggs Katrina Group would not have formed. Dickie Scruggs would not have had clients for whom to file lawsuits. If George Dale had done his job, he would have been the one to file a racketeering lawsuit against State Farm rather than leaving it up to a private citizen who cares deeply about his fellow Mississippians to file it.

Mississippians for Fair Elections
George Dale is upset that Dickie Scruggs put up $250,000 of his own money into a political action committee that aired a commercial that told the truth about how Dale has allowed the insurance industry to deny claims all over the state. At the same time, Dale had approved a 30% increase in insurance premiums. What’s the problem?

Well, from Dale’s perspective, speaking the truth is problematic because, well, he’s used to not telling the truth. Information is critical to an informed electorate. And informed electorate is critical to fair elections. Dickie Scruggs was merely exercising his right as an American to assist his fellow Mississippians in being more informed of their lives under George Dale.

This reminds me of the Bush Administration being angry at the leak rather than embarrassed that it betrayed our trust to spoil American blood in a war that was wholly unnecessary. No wonder Dale campaigned for Bush in 2004. They had some kind of “shirk responsibility” bond thing going on.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who’s the Angriest . . .
Rather than pointing a finger at Dickie Scruggs, George Dale should be thanking heaven that the Dickie Scruggs of the world exist to protect consumers from corporate thievery when the government officials who are supposed to protect us walk away from their responsibilities. Sure, the involvement of Dickie Scruggs and other attorneys with Katrina lawsuits is a clear indicator that Dale failed miserably as a commissioner. But Dale’s failure is his own—not those who are helping to clean up his mess.

Dickie Scruggs has come to symbolize all of the good that trial lawyers do for the little guys and all of the failure George Dale has brought into his own life by not doing his job. A real shame, isn’t it?

That, my friends, is the holy all of it. George Dale did not do his job, which was to regulate Big Insurance and how they treated Mississippi’s families and businesses. He did not demand that these insurance companies live up to their word, pay out on their wind claims, and treat South Mississippians with the respect that they deserved.

If Dale had done his job, Gary Anderson would not have had a reason to run for insurance commissioner to protect Mississippi households and business owners. We’d have already been in good hands. The commissioner would have already proven himself to be like a good neighbor.

If Dale had done his job, the Dickie Scruggs of the world would not have had to step in and do it for him. George Dale should thank Dickie Scruggs for helping to bring justice and hope to the families that he had betrayed.

George Dale fails to look at himself in the mirror much less in the eye. On his own, George Dale lost his job, and he has no one to blame but himself. No wonder he's angry.




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