Not that most “owners” meaning those with equity in a house have property insurance so in essence the housing effort by FEMA is a direct subsidy to the property insurers who thereby have less political pressure on them to come to an earlier and fairer settlement. Also all who recieve an insurance payment by law are to reimburse FEMA as a minimum and the law could be read that because of the prohibition on “duplication of benefits” these insureds never should have received benefits in the form of disaster relief in the first place. Note however that many insureds do not have temporary coverage for rent if they evacuate from their houses. Another dichotomy for which some may have paid with their life and not evacuated in Hurricane Sandy.

FEMA has few employees who understand the property/casualty insurance business and of course many insurance companies will be doing their best to adjust against losses by the NFIP that provides flood insurance.

Notice how difficult it is to get accurate consolidated figures on disaster zones! Why? The natural tendency IMO is for local groups wanting to de-emphasize the scope of the short and long term impacts. Much awaits present outcomes of current decision-making and of course future courses of action.
Perhaps the STATES and certain city states are just not quite the geographic entities needed for a concerted and coordinated response. Cut the bridges, tunnels, ferries, subways to the STATE of Long Island and get a different viewpoint of the large mass of population and critical infrastructure that needs tending. Perhaps if geographic areas with populations larger some of the original and current STATES and equivalent representation in the Congress there might be more of a response to the demand pull from disasters. And perhaps the competitive situation of various areas might be more prominent. As in which areas have just bet against the certain of the future destruction of MOTHER NATURE by pretending that the risk is low.

Why is so little really published about historic disaster losses? STATES have been required to have mitigation plans since the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 that amended the Robert T. Stafford Act. Care to guess the ready availability of those plans?

Make sure most understand it will be a long difficult winter in most the Hurricane Sandy heavy impact areas. There is a certain irony in that two Governors of different parties, possible political rivals for the Presidency in 2016, are coming to grips with the tough reality that their performance in Hurricane Sandy response and recovery and even mitigation efforts may well determine their political future. And of course MOTHER NATURE may well have more in store over the next 4 years.

And just as we stupidly poured money into the sands of Iraq and Afghanistan perhaps now time to not due the same to the already developed Barrier Islands that want to shift even their fundamental location over time. The risk of current occupancy of hazardous areas should be weighed before reinvesting.

And it should be recognized what has happened in the Gulf Coast and Florida. The Property and Casualty Insurers are abandoning rapidly that market for broad form homeowners insurance [HO-5] and forcing self insurance on many or trying to mask the problem with grossly actuarial unsound STATE catastrophe pools that pretend the resources will be available when all understand they will not.

And soon there may well be evidence of Professor Dennis Mileti’s so-called “Therapeutic Community” breaking down so assist law enforcement by restricting access to areas that cannot possible be rehabilitated this spring.

Yes time to rethink the entirety of the transportation and communications hubs impacted by Hurricane Sandy and even more certainly the energy and fuel complexes.

Make no mistake,a national level concern needs to be demonstrated NOW not a month from now. And yes preservation of this area is NOW a National Security Concern not to be postponed.

The FEMA structure was enlarged but not reformed as well soon be evident with often the wrong types of personnel in the lead. This is NOT a localized fire situation even a Full Box Alarm. Nor is it amenable to the scarce talents and efforts of the Coast Guard as in Katrina.

Hopefully in my comments on this blog over the last few years I can skip being blamed for a Jerimiah. The NSC and its NSS staff does not get it. They totally missed on the catastrophic situation in Haiti, made worse by Hurrican Sandy, and that it was an earthquake with domestic implications only 700 miles offshore.

Well now that parts of the Hurricane Sandy impact areas look like Haiti perhaps some will understand my concerns.

Federal Reserve and US Treasury wake up as your skills are needed NOW not tomorrow in this large-scale event. And only a CAT 1 imagine if the FEMA models showing a CAT 4 or 5 had occurred.

Hurricane Sandy should be the wake up call. Don’t do stupid things like fill in the new inlets carved through FIRE ISLAND!