Katrina Wednesday Roundup

DirectTV has launched a 24/7 channel to provide up to the moment Katrina relief coverage.

The channel enables viewers to contact relatives and friends separated by the storm by means of text messages that run along the bottom of screens displaying DIRECTV's channel 100.

To place such a message, viewers can send an e-mail to katrina@directv.com or a cellphone text message to text code "48433."

This morning, the media was trying to figure out whether the country was ready for another hurricane strike along the Gulf Coast. The morning network shows were particularly worried about FEMA and whether it would be up to the task of dealing with a landfall in Texas or Louisiana. Much less coverage was given to the state preparedness, despite the fact that Louisiana may get sideswiped in a Texas landfall.

FEMA claims that it is prepared, and has stockpiled food, ice, and supplies in various areas in Texas should they be needed. Texas hasn't taken any chances and has evacuated hospitals and nursing homes in the Galveston area because a major hurricane landfall there could be as devastating as Katrina was on New Orleans. People are clearly not taking any chances with Rita having seen what Katrina wrought.

UPDATE:
Hurricane Job Hunter is a website set up to help displaced residents locate jobs.

When the levee breaks, may be a good Led Zeppelin song, but when that actually happens, it can cause misery for hundreds of thousands. Now, scientists and engineers are trying to figure out how and why the levees failed in and around New Orleans.

That would make faulty design, inadequate construction or some combination of the two the likely cause of the breaching of the floodwalls along the 17th Street and London Avenue canals -- and the flooding of most of New Orleans.

Expect a fight over what the underlying cause was, as the Army Corps of Engineers believes that overtopping was the reason for the failure.

We are absolutely convinced that those floodwalls were never overtopped," said van Heerden, who also runs LSU's Center for the Study of Public Health Impacts of Hurricanes.

In an interview Tuesday, Corps spokesman Paul Johnston said the agency still believes that storm surges overtopped the concrete floodwalls near the lake, then undermined the earthen levees on which they were perched, setting the stage for the breaches that emptied the lake into the city.

Johnston said the Corps intends to launch an investigation to make sure it is correct about that scenario. But he emphasized that Katrina was a Category 4 hurricane when it smashed into the Gulf Coast, whereas Congress authorized the Corps to protect New Orleans against a storm only up to Category 3. "The event exceeded the design," Johnston said.

The center's researchers agree that Katrina's initial surge from the southeast overwhelmed floodwalls along the New Orleans Industrial Canal, flooding the city's Lower Ninth Ward as well as St. Bernard Parish. They believe that a little-used Army Corps navigation canal known as the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet helped amplify that surge, although they acknowledge that this surge was larger than the system was designed to control.

UPDATE:
The Slidell Hurricane Damage Blog is constantly updating its pages with information. Today's posts include how insurance companies are trying to parse the damage from the storm so that they do not have to pay. It's a common tale, and one that I warned about after Katrina came ashore. Most people do not have separate flood insurance policies and the basic policy does not cover flood damage. So, if the insurance companies claim that the damage was due to flooding, and not the wind or rain, then you cannot collect on your policy. Now, Mississippi is trying to sue the insurance companies to make them pay on the damage claims, but this is one area where the insurance companies will likely win.

Hurricane Insurance Information Center is a website focused on insurance concerns, and has a special section for Katrina victims. There's a brochure that you can download that explains the claims process.

The typical homeowners policy covers damage due to wind, wind-driven rain and fire (including arson), theft (including looting), vandalism and damage to your home caused by fallen trees. So if your home has been damaged or destroyed by windstorm damage or any of these named perils, your homeowners insurance company will pay to have your home repaired or rebuilt up to the limits of your policy. Most homeowners policies also cover damage to other structures on the premises, such as a garage or tool shed.

You are covered for flood if you purchased flood insurance from the federal government’s National Flood Insurance Program, a division of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The coverage has been readily available at affordable prices from the federal government since 1968.

Flood losses have never been covered under any homeowners insurance policy.

So, if you don't have a separate flood policy, you may be out of luck if the insurer determines your losses are due to flood damage. Also, many people will find themselves under insured, even if they have both the typical homeowners policy and flood insurance. One has to regularly inventory and update the replacement value of the property. If you don't do this regularly, you'll find yourself unable to cover all of your losses.

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