Donna Speaks: Water, Water, Cool Muddy Water

There's been lotsa flooding in our neck of the woods over the past few days. If you listen to our astute weathermen and women, they'll tell you the flooding was caused by lotsa rain and the lotsa rain was caused by lotsa storms.  Lotsa folks 'round here supported their theory that lotsa rain caused lotsa flooding and all this was caused by lotsa storms. 

The news men and women have even interviewed these folks on TV.  Yesterday evening they interviewed one man whose home had been severely damaged by the lotsa rain, flooding, and storms.  In fact, a tree had fallen on one part of his home.  The man said, "Ya see this," The camera man showed picture of a smashed window with smashed blinds a'blowin in the wind.)  "Well," continues the interviewee, "that's my grandma's bedroom," the man's voice kinda choked up.  "If she'd been in her bed sleeping... well, it woulda killed her."  Almost sobs come through the mike.  "Yep, it woulda killed her... but she died about eight months ago."

Jan and I almost busted a gut at that.  "Yea, she'd been killed if she weren't dead."  What an interview.

All this rain, flooding, and storms reminded me of the same sort of weather that came through Wichita Falls, Texas many, many years ago.  I was driving a car full of fully habited nuns from Abilene to Wichita Falls for some sort of meeting.  We'd been driving through this weather for hours, but were almost at our destination.  

I came up to a creek with a low water bridge.  There was water running over it, but it didn't seem that deep.  We all put our veiled heads together, conferred, and made the decision to cross over.

As I got closer, I saw a sign but could not read what it said: the sign's lights were out. And it was dark, very dark. I slowly, ever so slowly, drove carefully, ever so carefully, over the bridge.

We could feel the water running very swiftly under the car.  My heart began beating so hard I was sure, if I looked down, I would see it hanging out of my chest.  It seemed to take forever, but we made it safely over.  

As we drove up onto the street and continued on our way, I looked in the rear view mirror and noticed a brightly lit sign positioned right before the low water bridge.  "Hmm," I thought, trying to read the two backward words.  It took a few seconds, but the words suddenly became crystal clear.  The words on the sign said: BRIDGE CLOSED.  

The BRIDGE CLOSED sign was O-U-T on the other side.  We'd crossed a c-l-o-s-e-d bridge.  Evidently, if you have four or more nuns together in a car, the car can drive on water.  Ya know, like levitate across. 

I informed my holy passengers.  After a brief pause there was a sudden, very loud burst of Catholic ejaculations*: "Holy Jesus", " Thank-You-Jesus", " Jesus-Mary-and-Joseph", "Oh, St Jude Saved Us", and on and on. These ejaculations were accompanied by the both-hands-raised-over-the-head gesture, which any Catholic in good standing, much less a nun, would never do in public.

Miss Althea, have a good day.

*"Ejaculation" is the official Catholic word for short bursts of prayer.  Really.

Will More Storms have Names?

Homeowners’ insurance used to cover houses damaged by hurricanes or storms in hurricane country, specifically in Louisiana where I lived for 40 some years.  Because hurricanes caused too much damage for the insurance companies to continue their obscene profits, they changed the coverage we could obtain. 

In 1992 after Hurricane Andrew leveled Homestead FL, the insurance companies started changing the deductible the homeowner had to pay, raising it to unaffordable limits if the hurricane was ‘named.’  

So with the insane amount insurance companies can afford to pay lobbyists, even tropical storms started getting names, long before they became hurricanes. You may not think that politicians have any say over weather forecasting, think again. They can’t control it, as much as they would love that, they sure can influence how insurance companies deal with paying for damages. And those lobbyists’ donation funds were limitless.

As years passed and insurance companies continued to limit coverage and after Hurricane Katrina occurred, insurance changed drastically.  In Louisiana any insurance company you have ever heard of, stopped writing any policies at all in hurricane areas. 

We were assigned risk homeowners and had to take either a company owned by the state of Louisiana or some company with a B rating and based on some island you have never heard of. And to top it off, the cheapest that could be had, with minimal coverage cost us some $6,000 a year.  That will dampen house sales in a hurry.  And destroy  your budget. Often insurance premiums were more than mortgage payments.

I say all of this because I have noticed that winter storms are staring to be named. Remember Hurricane Sandy, that became Superstorm Sandy.

Watch out northerners, south westerners and north westerners. The insurance companies are not satisfied again and will demand that more storms be named so your premiums will rise higher than you can even imagine and your coverage will drop. 

And while we are talking about insurance, flood insurance is entirely different and must be bought separately. It’s underwritten by the Federal Government and not all that expensive.  Be sure you are covered. Water damage is not covered by your homeowners insurance.

Be prepared. I can see rain storms, snow storms and high wind storms being named. Can fires or sand storms be far behind?