Please bookmark the address this blog moved to: http://hurricane-katrina-pictures.com
I will delete this blog on September 30, 2009.
All posts that are here were moved to the new site.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Thursday, November 29, 2007
This Blog Has Moved
Hi everyone!
Please visit this blog's new home at Hurricane Katrina Pictures (http://hurricane-katrina-pictures.com).
All new posts will be published there. I have a couple of new videos of recovery stories from Southern Mississippi that are truly heartwarming. I hope you'll visit the new site and view them.
Please visit this blog's new home at Hurricane Katrina Pictures (http://hurricane-katrina-pictures.com).
All new posts will be published there. I have a couple of new videos of recovery stories from Southern Mississippi that are truly heartwarming. I hope you'll visit the new site and view them.
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Patrick Wogan and the Maxwell Family of Tuscaloosa, AL
Patrick Wogan was taken in by the Maxwell family in Tuscaloosa, AL after Hurricane Katrina damaged his home in Slidell, LA. Patrick was separated from his parents while they stayed behind and repaired their house.
Here's a terrific story in the Tuscaloosa News.com about the family who took Patrick in and their reunion with him at the October 2007 LSU/Alabama game after he returned home in 2006.
The Maxwells are why I still have hope that the world is going to be a better place.
See more pictures in the Hurricane Katrina Picture Book by Jeffery Morgan
Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City
by Jed Horne.
Here's a terrific story in the Tuscaloosa News.com about the family who took Patrick in and their reunion with him at the October 2007 LSU/Alabama game after he returned home in 2006.
The Maxwells are why I still have hope that the world is going to be a better place.
See more pictures in the Hurricane Katrina Picture Book by Jeffery Morgan
Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City
by Jed Horne.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Hurricane Katrina Aftermath Slide Show #2
Slide show presented by lilspoiledazn on YouTube. Video caption:
"A clip of the tragedies from Hurricane Katrina"
I watched and posted the slide shows and the video today, and I'm still heartbroken about this tragedy. Two years later, I can't look at these pictures and not cry. Maybe that's a good thing. I didn't feel anything for so long. I didn't grieve for the loss of the city I used to call home from 1977-1985, the city I graduated high school in and the city where I had family ties and old friends until 2005.
I didn't look at any picture of Katrina's aftermath for two years after I'd spent so much time going back and forth between Baton Rouge and New Orleans to help my mom move.
The saddest thing about these pictures is that after two years so many of the houses in so many neighborhoods are still in shambles. Their owners will never return. The current New Orleans population is about half of what it was before Hurricane Katrina. I don't believe it will grow much beyond that unless the levees, flood walls and hurricane protection systems are brought up to withstand a strong category 5 hurricane. I had thought about moving to Metairie to be more accessible to my potential client base. But I'll never move farther south than Ascension Parish now. It's just too risky.
See more pictures in the Hurricane Katrina Picture Book by Jeffery Morgan
Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City
by Jed Horne.
"A clip of the tragedies from Hurricane Katrina"
I watched and posted the slide shows and the video today, and I'm still heartbroken about this tragedy. Two years later, I can't look at these pictures and not cry. Maybe that's a good thing. I didn't feel anything for so long. I didn't grieve for the loss of the city I used to call home from 1977-1985, the city I graduated high school in and the city where I had family ties and old friends until 2005.
I didn't look at any picture of Katrina's aftermath for two years after I'd spent so much time going back and forth between Baton Rouge and New Orleans to help my mom move.
The saddest thing about these pictures is that after two years so many of the houses in so many neighborhoods are still in shambles. Their owners will never return. The current New Orleans population is about half of what it was before Hurricane Katrina. I don't believe it will grow much beyond that unless the levees, flood walls and hurricane protection systems are brought up to withstand a strong category 5 hurricane. I had thought about moving to Metairie to be more accessible to my potential client base. But I'll never move farther south than Ascension Parish now. It's just too risky.
See more pictures in the Hurricane Katrina Picture Book by Jeffery Morgan
Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City
by Jed Horne.
During Katrina at Beau Rivage Resort Biloxi, MS
Posted on YouTube by pcampo. This is the caption he put with the video:
"Video taken during Katrina from the Beau Rivage Casino on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. I didn't take it. It was one of many circulalted thru my familys inboxes."
Whoever took the video didn't comment much. You can see the water level rise as the storm surge comes ashore. At the beginning of the video, the videographer is pretty high up in the parking structure, but as the storm progresses, the floor he's on is getting close to water level.
See more pictures in the Hurricane Katrina Picture Book by Jeffery Morgan
Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City
by Jed Horne.
"Video taken during Katrina from the Beau Rivage Casino on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. I didn't take it. It was one of many circulalted thru my familys inboxes."
Whoever took the video didn't comment much. You can see the water level rise as the storm surge comes ashore. At the beginning of the video, the videographer is pretty high up in the parking structure, but as the storm progresses, the floor he's on is getting close to water level.
See more pictures in the Hurricane Katrina Picture Book by Jeffery Morgan
Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City
by Jed Horne.
Hurricane Katrina New Orleans Aftermath Slideshow
This video slide show was made by Nedim and it's located on YouTube.
See more pictures in the Hurricane Katrina Picture Book by Jeffery Morgan
Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City
by Jed Horne.
See more pictures in the Hurricane Katrina Picture Book by Jeffery Morgan
Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City
by Jed Horne.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Scary Homeowners Hurricane Deductible
I just received my new homeowners insurance policy in the mail, and I'm really depressed and angry all over again.
I scanned in the cover page and the declaration page. Have a look at the hurricane deductible note in the first image (5% of Dwelling protection coverage limit), and the actual amount in the second image, $7,550.
It looks like your normal policy, except for the pages and pages of bold, all-caps print that tells you everything the policy doesn't cover.
They also added a charge, which equates to a tax, that we all have to pay. It's called the Louisiana Citizens Fair Plan Emergency Assessment Surcharge. The good news? My premium will be reduced to $907.83, and the single surcharge is going to be $32.68. My annual coverage for my house with a replacement value of $151,000 is $940.51. My premium will go down by $128.76 this year. If my garage is destroyed because of a hurricane, I basically have to pay 50% of its value to rebuild it.
But the decrease in premium doesn't even begin to cover the increase in the deductible. 7550/128.76 = 58.6, meaning it would take 58.6 years to save up that deductible from the premium reduction alone.
In 2006, I had an additional deductible for hurricane damage that applied on top of my regular deductible. If you had a $500 deductible, your hurricane damage deductible was $1000, or another $500 tacked on if damage was hurricane damage. We also had two surcharges: Louisiana Citizens Fair Plan Regular Assessment Surcharge, and Louisiana Citizens Coastal Plan Regular Assessment Surcharge. Those added up to $139.47. My annual coverage cost another $929.80, and my total premium was $1069.27 on a $140,000 replacement value.
Prior to Katrina and Rita, we had a separate hurricane deductible equal to the regular deductible (total $1000), but our premiums were lower. Mine was $786 for the period of Oct. 2004 to Oct. 2005, and there was no surcharge.
My premium, and thus my house payment went up $283.27 in one year. And now it's only going down $128.76 with a far, far higher hurricane deductible. This means I'm going to have to increase the value of my emergency fund by $6550 to cover the extra risk.
Where is the money President Bush promised? How are people supposed to rebuild and keep that much cash in reserve for this outrageous increase in deductibles? I live in Baton Rouge, and we didn't see total destruction on the scale of the parishes lying south east of here. How much did their deductibles go up? To 10%? I wouldn't be surprised.
If you want to know why people here are angry and depressed and not getting over the whole thing, this is another reason why. It's two years after Katrina and Rita, and now we are all basically self insured for hurricane damage that isn't catastrophic (more than 5% of the dwelling coverage). We continue to get kicked in the teeth at every turn. What's next? I'm sure there will be something.
For more pictures and information on Hurricane Katrina and her aftermath, see:
Hurricane Katrina Picture Book
by Jeffrey Morgan
and
Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City
by Jed Horne.
I scanned in the cover page and the declaration page. Have a look at the hurricane deductible note in the first image (5% of Dwelling protection coverage limit), and the actual amount in the second image, $7,550.
It looks like your normal policy, except for the pages and pages of bold, all-caps print that tells you everything the policy doesn't cover.
They also added a charge, which equates to a tax, that we all have to pay. It's called the Louisiana Citizens Fair Plan Emergency Assessment Surcharge. The good news? My premium will be reduced to $907.83, and the single surcharge is going to be $32.68. My annual coverage for my house with a replacement value of $151,000 is $940.51. My premium will go down by $128.76 this year. If my garage is destroyed because of a hurricane, I basically have to pay 50% of its value to rebuild it.
But the decrease in premium doesn't even begin to cover the increase in the deductible. 7550/128.76 = 58.6, meaning it would take 58.6 years to save up that deductible from the premium reduction alone.
In 2006, I had an additional deductible for hurricane damage that applied on top of my regular deductible. If you had a $500 deductible, your hurricane damage deductible was $1000, or another $500 tacked on if damage was hurricane damage. We also had two surcharges: Louisiana Citizens Fair Plan Regular Assessment Surcharge, and Louisiana Citizens Coastal Plan Regular Assessment Surcharge. Those added up to $139.47. My annual coverage cost another $929.80, and my total premium was $1069.27 on a $140,000 replacement value.
Prior to Katrina and Rita, we had a separate hurricane deductible equal to the regular deductible (total $1000), but our premiums were lower. Mine was $786 for the period of Oct. 2004 to Oct. 2005, and there was no surcharge.
My premium, and thus my house payment went up $283.27 in one year. And now it's only going down $128.76 with a far, far higher hurricane deductible. This means I'm going to have to increase the value of my emergency fund by $6550 to cover the extra risk.
Where is the money President Bush promised? How are people supposed to rebuild and keep that much cash in reserve for this outrageous increase in deductibles? I live in Baton Rouge, and we didn't see total destruction on the scale of the parishes lying south east of here. How much did their deductibles go up? To 10%? I wouldn't be surprised.
If you want to know why people here are angry and depressed and not getting over the whole thing, this is another reason why. It's two years after Katrina and Rita, and now we are all basically self insured for hurricane damage that isn't catastrophic (more than 5% of the dwelling coverage). We continue to get kicked in the teeth at every turn. What's next? I'm sure there will be something.
For more pictures and information on Hurricane Katrina and her aftermath, see:
Hurricane Katrina Picture Book
by Jeffrey Morganand
Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City
by Jed Horne.
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