Katrina's Gulf Coast Visit
When Katrina made land fall it came with a 30 foot storm surge. Yup, 30 feet more than normal tides. Go outside and measure up 3 stories on some building and then imagine that much water coming at you. We traveled this highway several years ago. A nice drive, beach on one side and the highway lined with hotels restaurants, etc. on the other. Now for 3 blocks inland from the highway there is nothing except concrete foundations. One story was of a family that drifted in their house that had come off it's foundations for about 2 hours in the storm and finally were able to escape into their boat that just happened to float along with them. Moments later the house collapsed.
We had hoped that we could take this detour and patronize a restaurant that might have been able to get going again. There was none for the entire length of the highway. These scenes are the same for 60 miles along the Mississippi coast.
All of these building are built up to avoid the issues of rising water. NOT ENOUGH.
One of the few building that didn't just collapse or drift away.
Arches, but no big macs.
Here the building were built more than 10 feet off the ground. The best view units closest to the beach, just torn off
The water subsided here quite quickly, but the hurricane induced storm surge damage was devastating. Insurance companies are currently refusing to not pay claims to people that didn't have flood insurance. The nuance is about the definition of flood. Rising water is considered flood, and there are lots of court cases that address this issue, but it's nonsensical to deny that this damage was caused by a hurricane and should be compensated for under hurricane insurance. There are people fighting the insurance companies but guess who's going to win.