Our EYES are really quite good at Eye on Miami: Heritage Insurance. By Geniusofdespair

Heritage Insurance CEO Bruce Lucas, Greedy Bastard!

As usual, my radar for bad stuff in campaign reports is on target.

Of course you all remember my post of June 29th when I was looking at Joe Martinez's campaign money. Who am I kidding  -- none of you remember. At one point I asked - in bold letters - about all the Heritage Insurance money flowing into Miguel Diaz de la Portilla's campaign AND Joe Martinez's campaign:

What does this Insurance company  want so desperately in Miami Dade County?  

Well don't you know that today, reading the rag (Miami Herald) there was an article about none other than Heritage Insurance. They want to raise rates in Florida by an average of 14.9% (don't look for the article on-line I couldn't find it).

According to the Palm Beach Post, Florida Homeowners would pay 25% more while the CEO Bruce Lucas is making $27.3 Million (quadrupled salary in one year). According to the Post, that is 50 times what the CEO gets paid at Citizens Insurance. Heritage Insurance contributed $110,000 to Rick Scott. So I have now answered my own question of June 29th, on why they are giving to Miguel Diaz de La Portilla's and Joe Martinez's campaign:

HERITAGE INSURANCE WANTS MORE MONEY!
So do NOT vote for who they support.

What do they offer, no surprises here, flood insurance! Gimleteye warned about insurance increase, last week in a Greenland post:

I'm thinking of beach erosion on the east coast, that so far has only put a few communities in harm's way. I'm thinking of extreme weather events that are piling up but have yet to affect the wealthy or insurance rates or forced evacuation of cities. I'm thinking of mass migrations out of sub Saharan Africa and parts of the Mideast, where temperatures are so high and drought so ferocious that whole populations are on the move. 

 

Flooding in South Florida is the Story Today. By Geniusofdespair

The Flood Watch is in effect till Saturday.

Pictures of the week. Flooding in a Red State: God must be punishing them. By Geniusofdespair

If not for the water, this looks like a photo right out of the Walking Dead

....Like God is punishing us for being a Swing State:

Which are the animals. Bear Hunt in Florida.

Miami Herald photo.  Now how does this work? The stores and restaurants get flooded but the streets don't? I could just see jumping that curb. Lawsuit.

I just got back from the emergency room -- but I still post. Did you watch my opera video yet? Did you read my famous Saturday Editorial? If not, you are all pieces of shit.

What happened to flood insurance in Congress? … by gimleteye

Miami Beach resident and senior Time Magazine correspondent Michael Grunwald wrote an excellent report on Congress' failure to reform flood insurance. It is a complicated issue that boils down to the question whether Americans who do not live on coastlines should subsidize the risk of those, like us, who do. Grunwald makes the problem easily understandable here:

Hell and High Water
• Michael Grunwald @MikeGrunwald
May 19, 2014, Time Magazine

Deep Trouble. Two years ago, lawmakers fixed our broken flood insurance system. Then they broke it all over again.

Here’s a rainy-season parable about cooperation in American politics: In July 2012, Republicans and Democrats came together during a bitter campaign season to enact sweeping reforms to the National Flood Insurance Program, phasing out subsidies for hundreds of thousands of property owners in flood-prone areas, dragging a debt-ridden program toward fiscal and ecological sustainability.

Know Your Flood Zone. By Geniusofdespair

I just went all over the map, you can target areas you are interested in with the link below but it does appear most of us are susceptible to floods (no surprise):

SW 113 Street and SW 156 Avenue: Flood Zone X, Elevation: -9999
SW 104 Street and Hammocks Blvd.: Flood Zone X, Elevation: -999
SW 104 Street and SW 177 Avenue: Flood Zone AH, Elevation 8
SW 99 Street and SW 167 Avenue: Flood Zone AH, Elevation 9
SW 128 Street and SW 207 Avenue: Flood Zone AH, Elevation 8
SW 184 Street and SW 222 Avenue: Flood Zone A, Elevation -9999
SW 208 Street and  SW 187 Avenue: Flood Zone AH, Elevation 9
SW 208 Street and  SW 172 Avenue: Flood Zone X, Elevation  -9999
SW 242 Street and SW 167 Avenue: Flood Zone X, Elevation -9999
SW 250 Street and SW 152 Avenue: Flood Zone AH, Elevation 9
SW 250 Street and SW 149 Avenue: Flood Zone X, Elevation -9999
SW 312 Street and SW 134 Avenue: Flood Zone X, Elevation -9999
SW 312 Street and SW 142 Avenue: Flood Zone AH, Elevation 5
SW 212 Street and SW 101 Avenue: Flood Zone X, Elevation -9999
SW 212 Street and SW 92 Avenue: Flood Zone AE, Elevation 9
SW 152 Street and  SW 82 Avenue: Flood Zone X, Elevation -9999
SW 152 Street and  SW 77 Avenue: Flood Zone AE, Elevation 10
SW 128 Street and SW 61 Avenue: Flood Zone X, Elevation -9999
SW 80 Street and SW 52 Avenue: Flood Zone X, Elevation -9999
SW 25 Street and SW 27 Avenue: Flood Zone X, Elevation -9999
NW 88 Street and  NW 112 Avenue: Flood Zone X, Elevation -9999
NW 112 Street and NW 89 Avenue: Flood Zone X, Elevation -9999
13 Street and A1A:  Flood Zone AE, Elevation 8
West 55 Street and Pinetree Drive, Flood Zone AE, Elevation 8
NE 142 Street and West Dixie Highway: Flood Zone X, Elevation -9999
NW 199 Street and NW 47 Avenue: Flood Zone AE, Elevation 7

(Do your own research)
 
Flood Zone Designations:  A, AE, AH, VE - Mandatory Flood Insurance

A: Zone A is the flood insurance rate zone that corresonds to the 100-yer floodplains that are determined in the Flood Isurance Study by approximate  methods. Because detailed hydraulic analyses are not performed for such areas, no Base Flood Elevations or depths are shown within this zone. Mandatory flood insurance purchase requirements apply.

AE: Areas subject to inundation by the 1-percent-annual-chance flood event determined by detailed methods. Base Flood Elevations (BFEs) are shown. Mandatory flood insurance purchase requirements and floodplain management standards apply.

AH: Areas subject to inundation by 1-percent-annual-chance shallow flooding (usually areas of ponding) where average depths are between one and three feet. Base Flood Elevations (BFEs) derived from detailed hydraulic analyses are shown in this zone. Mandatory flood insurance purchase requirements and floodplain management standards apply.

V: Areas subject to inundation by the 1-percent-annual-chance flood event determined by detailed methods. Base Flood Elevations (BFEs) are shown. Mandatory flood insurance purchase requirements and floodplain management standards apply.

VE: Areas subject to inundation by the 1-percent-annual-chance flood event with additional hazards due to storm-induced velocity wave action. Base Flood Elevations (BFEs) derived from detailed hydraulic analyses are shown. Mandatory flood insurance purchase requirements and floodplain management standards apply.

X: Zone X is the flood insurance rate zone that corresonds to areas outside the 100 year floodplains, areas of 100-year sheet flow flooding where average depths are less than 1 foot, areas of 100-year stream flooding where the contributing drainage area is less than 1 square mile, or areas protected from the 100 year flood by levees. No Base Flood Elevations. No mandatory insurance because of levee.

Flood control: nature bats last ... by gimleteye

Most South Floridians don't know how close our situation is, to the Great Flood in the Mississippi River. The same agency-- the US Army Corps of Engineers-- that has played the key role in sacrificing one part of the Delta in order to save New Orleans is in charge of similar decisions in South Florida through the operation of the most complicated flood control system in the United States. Here the sacrifice has always been: drain the Everglades so more people can live in historic wetlands.

Restoring the Everglades will consume nearly $20 billion, largely to rework flood control features never meant to protect the Everglades. They were designed to drain them. The purpose of draining was not even to protect communities and private property: it was to create more private property in order to create more demand for flood control. It is a subtle point. Speculators gained control of Florida by draining swampland, but government failed to protect natural resources because its power derived from creating more demand for its services.

It is the story of the 8.5 Square Mile Area, of Weston, and of Sunset Lakes in Broward. It is the story of the Fanjul billionaires agitating for more rock mines and inland ports and power plants in the Everglades. Other cities are in wetlands that once flooded regularly: Hialeah and Sweetwater where the natural flow of the Everglades once was very sweet. The deepest water in the Everglades was where Miami International Airport is located. Seen another way, draining the lands for the airport ensured the surrounding areas would be less susceptible to flooding. So we drive down LeJeune or Tamiami Trail or US 27 without ever thinking of getting wet.

Except for the coastal ridge, there is no part of South Florida that is immune to flooding. A wet, major hurricane will remind Floridians as the Great Flood has in Mississippi: nature bats last.