Hurrican Richard, Are we ready?

Albeit, the end of October and yet no storm. By this point most are thinking that it is going to be another year that we have dodged the bullet, or have we?  At the time that I am writing this there is actually a storm that by many models and predictions is forming and has a possibility of striking the U.S., in Florida. It is too early to tell, and yet the possibility does exist. For the average person, those who do not monitor such information on a daily basis as many of my friends and colleagues do, they have not even heard this news yet. We have now been a few years since having a major storm strike.

Are we ready?  Topf Initiatives, a company that is involved in safety, health, and environmental training states “ that the more time that slips by without a predicted disaster the greater a person’s deniability.” FM Global, the insurance giant, that ranks 542 in FORTUNE MAGAZINE’S largest companies in America, has released a recent study that is titled “Flirting with Natural Disasters” which asserts that when we have a period of time that has passed and no natural disaster has occurred or if one has occurred but was of little consequence, leaving a company of individual without harm or damage, the thinking is that the worst has passed. Planning is changed and becomes focused on other areas.

As more time goes on, the more ill prepared cities and areas remain. Companies become lax in their planning. It is amazing to think that models being used are based on models that define disaster risk as a 1 in 100 year occurrence, or some other unrealistic ratio.  The report by FM Global gives credence to the importance of companies and models taking into the consideration the psychological impact that disasters have had on individuals, businesses, and towns. The report also gives some solutions that can guide organizations to change their decision-making behavior with regards to natural disasters.

In recent news has been the news of the Institute for Business & Home Safety performing safety tests on real homes built-in a setting that can mimic a strong wind storm or even hurricane-force winds to see how they can withstand these conditions.
You can watch one of these tests here on a  Fox News story. The test winds exceeded 90 mph, one home that wasn’t built to hurricane-resistant specifications and could not withstand the winds and was destroyed.

I am still amazed that after all of the disasters that have been faced it has taken us until now to get to this point of testing and not only thinking about better construction but actually testing and putting it into place. The same with the flood program. We continue to pay for a flooded home over and over. Now with the SRL, Severe Repetitive Loss Program, recognizing that we need to spend monies to reduce the chances or construct some protection from flooding, in lieu of continuing to pay for the same home repeatedly. We need to proactively find better solutions. I recall working flood claims in New Orleans many years ago on the West Bank. I asked a homeowner there who had repeatedly flooded and built back almost yearly, ” this is terrible, why don’t you move?” He looked at me and said, “who do you think would buy this house?” What a great point.

I am an eternal optimist, I do however, wonder even with all that we have experienced, are we ready for the next disaster? Have we done all that we can do to be ready? Are our companies ready to sustain, are our adjusters trained equipped and ready, are our emergency management and responders ready? No one knows if Richard will strike, but if it does, let us hope that we are ready and will not have to repeat the lessons that were hard learned from the four back to back hurricanes that hit Florida followed by that master of disaster; Katrina, among other disasters we have faced.

 

 

 

 

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