This article is taken from a previous, longer article about the health impacts of flooding. Here we focus mostly on flood preparation and recovery.
A recent study titled Increasing Vulnerability to Health Effects before, during and after Floods, observed the following in people who had experienced a major flood…
- Males had a higher risk of dying due to risk taking behaviors
- Females had a higher risk for anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress
- Young children, the elderly, and those with a chronic disease (e.g. heart disease, lung disease, etc) had a higher chance of getting sick or sicker
- Poor people have bad outcomes because they don’t have the resources to avoid the worst
- All persons who prepare in advance have better outcomes!
Do you fit into one or more of these categories? It’s hard to imagine anyone who doesn’t. Fortunately, we can all fit into the last category, that’s what this blog is all about.
How can we prepare for the worst?
Beyond doing everything we can to keep things from getting worse, what can we do to protect ourselves and our families from extreme precipitation and flooding? Maybe the single most important thing we can do is to know what kind of insurance we have, and to get the right coverage if we don’t have it. Other things include, documenting all of our belongings, and being financially and physically prepared.
Check your insurance coverage!
Most renter and homeowner policies specifically do NOT cover flooding. They will cover water damage that comes from the top down (e.g. roof leaks, plumbing breaks), but not water damage from the ground up, such as, from flooding due to extreme rain or hurricanes. So just to see where I was with my own coverage I called my insurance company. Turns out that I already have coverage for flooding. The agent told me that this is not the usual industry practice. The agent also informed me that if you own a house, the flood insurance is usually a separate policy. The cost of course depends how prone where you live is to flooding.
Check out these tools to help you figure out your risk of flooding where you live…
- FloodTools.com
- This site is easy to use to help pin down your risk of flooding. However, it gives insurance quotes from some company I’ve never heard of. You are probably better off figuring out your risk, then going to the insurance company that you already have a relationship with, to see what they can do for you.
- FEMA Flood Maps
- This site is not easy to find, and it’s not too easy to interpret, but it’s probably the source of data for the other sites.
- National Flood Insurance Program (This site is no longer working)
- The NFIP underwrites flood insurance for the industry. In other words, the taxpayers back the insurance companies’ risk.
CAUTION! Flood risk maps are based on historical data. In a changing world of extreme weather these maps may no longer be accurate. So it might be advisable to bump your own risk estimate up by at least one level.
Document your belongings and property
Another important aspect of preparing for floods, or any disaster for that matter, is documenting your belongings before anything happens. The best way to do that is to take pictures… lots of them.
Personally, every year or two I take photos of all of my major possessions. I then store those pictures in several locations, including my computer, on an SD card or thumb drive, and on-line. You can get a free google drive account that comes with 15 gigabytes of storage. If you have a Gmail account already, then the G-drive is part of that. Just type “drive.google.com” into your browser, or click here.
You can always use your cell phone to take pictures, but I think it’s easier to take a lot of high quality pictures using a dedicated camera. I bought the Sony DSC-RX100 a year ago, and I absolutely love it. It takes amazing pictures on its automatic settings, but you can also control it manually if you want. Plus, I just remove the SD memory card from the camera and plug it directly into my computer to transfer the pics. Also, be sure to lock the SD card (tiny slider switch on most SD cards), label the card, and keep it in a safe place.
Be prepared!
Besides insurance, you need to be financially and physically prepared to weather the storm. We had an earlier post in this blog about financial preparedness. Beyond being well insured and financially prepared, you must be physically prepared.
Preparedness includes having a disaster plan for you and your family, keeping your car in good shape with a full tank of gas during times of higher risk (during hurricane season, for example), having a bug out bag with all the necessary ingredients for 7 days of survival for all persons in your family.
Some of these things are topics of a future posts, so I won’t go into great detail, but here are a few sites to help you make a plan…
- Make an emergency communication plan for your family from Ready.gov
- Flood safety from the American Red Cross (click on the tabs under the “Flood Safety” heading
- Contents of a basic disaster supply kit from Ready.gov
Most reputable government sources will tell you that you need only 3 days worth of food and water, however, future storms driven by climate change promise to be real monsters. Seven days should be your bare minimum. Also, if you really want to get into preparedness, here’s a couple of sites I like…
- momwithaprep.com – found this site not long ago. It has good info about general household preparedness.
- survivalblog.com – I’ve been following this site off and on for years. This site hosts curated, quality content written by readers. It tends to go off the political and paranoid deep-end sometime, but there’s otherwise some really good info in there.
- Here’s a decent book that came from that blog… How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It: Tactics, Techniques, and Technologies for Uncertain Times
What to do if the worst happens?
Suppose the worst has happened. Your home is submerged. Fortunately, you had a plan, your paid attention to local radio and TV warnings, you kept your gas tank full, and you left early with your bug out bag and got yourself and your family to safety. Depending on how bad it was, you may not be able to go home for a while. But eventually the water will receded, and you can finally go home to survey the damage. Now what?
With all the flooding in Texas, the Houston Chronicle has written a few good articles about what to do after a flood, which are summarized here. Apparently, the number one thing you can do is take LOTS of pictures. This helps with insurance claims and application for disaster assistance. ALSO, you should have taken pictures BEFORE any disaster, as discussed above.
Here’s some steps to take if your car is flooded…
- If you need to rent a car get one quickly, maybe the first thing you do. Everyone else affected by the flooding will be doing the same thing, and car rental companies will run out quickly.
- Find your car. Lots of flooded cars will be towed as the water recedes.
- Take lots of pictures of the damage (sounding familiar by now?!)
- Contact your insurance company ASAP, and send them the pics
- To get your car fixed or replaced you need comprehensive coverage, not just liability coverage
- Your insurance company will likely want a look at your car, so follow their instructions for towing, etc.
- If the water was up to the engine it may be salvageable
- If the water was up to the dashboard it’s probably totaled
- Don’t start the engine! That will suck water into the engine and make any damage worse. Wait for a mechanic to check it out.
Here are some of the steps to take if your home is flooded…
- Contact your insurance agent as soon as possible to get the ball rolling. Everybody else will be doing the same thing, so don’t delay.
- Take pictures of everything that’s damaged (hopefully you have pics from before the damage too!)
- Wear protective gear! Everything that’s flooded eventually has to come out and be thrown away. In the process of doing that work you need to protect yourself from the toxic muck and mold. So keep your skin covered and wear a high-quality respirator (an N-95 rated respirator). Eye protection is probably a good idea too, and sturdy boots.
- Set-up fans to circulate air, and dehumidify if you can.
- Wet carpets are toast. Rip them up and toss them out. Submerged wood floors will likely buckle, and end up beyond repair.
- Cut and remove drywall and insulation up to the level of flooding. Otherwise mold will grow behind walls.
- Clean hard surfaces with a bleach solution
- Get help from your insurance company or from FEMA (see below)
if your house is completely destroyed, what then?
- If you have flood insurance, contact your agent as soon as possible, if not sooner! Everyone else will be doing the same. (Don’t forget to take lots of pictures, right?!)
- Contact FEMA to see what assistance applies to you…
- DisasterAssistance.gov offers one stop shopping for Federal Aid and many other resources
- Or call 1-800-621-FEMA (3362)
- Other sources of help to remember, include…
- Unemployment Insurance
- U.S. Small Business Administration loans
- USDA loans for ranchers and farmers
- State and Tribal disaster assistance programs
- Also, if you’re a victim of flood or other disaster, you may be eligible for breaks come tax time
How do we keep it from getting worse?
Okay, so now you’ve done all the right things to prepare. Maybe you’ve survived the worst. Now what? As we have seen, big changes are already happening, and it’s likely to get worse. But, to keep things from getting truly apocalyptic we have to do everything we can. Check out this post for Five Ways You Can Fight Climate Change Without Washington’s Help.
Here’s a quick review…
- Preparation is key — get insurance, have a plan, make a bug-out bag, get your life in order
- Take lots of pictures BEFORE disaster strikes, and store them in multiple safe places
- Get out-of-town early before the ‘SHTF’
- Contact your insurance company early
- Take lots of pictures of damaged property
- Apply for emergency aid as soon as possible
- Keep it from getting worse – lead by example, switch to alternative energy, be politically active.
If you want some gory detail about the link between climate change and extreme precipitation, check out this post… Climate Change and Deadly Floods: What you need to know.
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