Allstate Agents Bully Agency Employees!

I sat having coffee last weekend with a good friend who wanted to talk shop with me because he was thinking of changing jobs. He said, “I’m just so tired of being bullied by my boss.”
Both conversations got me thinking how some people make a short leap from schoolyard bully to workforce bully in one lifetime. No matter how old you are or where you are in life or career, abuse by a bully can pose a serious threat to your emotional and physical well-being. When bullying happens in the workplace, it creates a dysfunctional environment that can yield high staff turnover, lost productivity and increased litigation—and it may jeopardize employee health and insurance costs.
Ironically, both of us work in insurance. My friend works for an Allstate agency. You know the arrangement, the agent runs it as a business, the agent is not an Allstate employee. The agency, though, has employees. They are not employees of Allstate, they are employees of the agency.

As profits shrink, agents take it out on their employees. Allstate closes down unprofitable agencies and competition these days is fierce. Florida, with its bans, unpopularity with Governor Crist and high payouts from hurricane damage is really bad.

Ike: Allstate’s Day of Reckoning?

September 7, 2008

As Hurricane Ike barrels toward South Florida, Americans can be sure they won’t have to endure another catastrophic failure of a hurricane protection system. That’s because South Florida doesn’t have a hurricane protection system. As South Floridians like to say: Ay dios mio! Ike is now scheduled to pass just south of Miami as a Category 4 storm; National Hurricane Center researchers recently concluded that a Cat 4 hitting Miami could cause $70 billion in damage. To use another South Florida-ism: Oy vey!

Dangling into the Gulf like a continental afterthought, Florida has always been Mother Nature’s favorite American target, absorbing eight named storms in 2004 and 2005 alone. The state has gotten better at preparing for hurricanes, with stricter building codes and well-rehearsed evacuation plans. But it’s still dangerously exposed — not only to the elements, but to financial ruin. It’s got the nation’s most dysfunctional property insurance market, a byproduct of life in harm’s way. Fitch’s ratings agency concluded in March that if a big storm hits Florida, “the fragile market could effectively collapse.”

Ike could well be a Gustav-like bust rather than a Katrina-like disaster. But eventually, disaster will visit the peninsula, and it’s still not clear who’s going to pay the tab. “It’s going to be a financial nightmare,” says Cecil Pearce of the American Insurance Association. “Florida is the nation’s basket case.”

It’s not that Florida’s vulnerability is a secret. Florida homeowners pay some of the nation’s highest insurance premiums; in a recent poll, despite a housing crisis, an economic crisis, a water crisis and an environmental crisis, Floridians named those premiums their number-two concern about the state’s future, behind property taxes but ahead of jobs, education, health care and the dying Everglades.

Since Hurricane Andrew put most Florida insurers out of business and scared several national insurers out of the state, the state government has helped to hedge the risk of hurricanes. It provides subsidized insurance to 1.3 million high-risk homeowners who can’t get private policies, an increase of more than 50% in just three years. It also has a Hurricane Catastrophe Fund that provides subsidized reinsurance to the state’s private firms.

But a series of studies have made it clear that if the Big One or even a Pretty Big One strikes, Florida is going to have very serious problems. The state-run insurance firm and the Catastrophe Fund have just a few billion dollars on hand, so a major storm would force both entities to float massive bond issues in an unfavorable market, and to make up their shortfalls through gigantic assessments on policyholders. A House committee recently warned that the state would have “extreme difficulty paying its obligations” after a 100-year storm, and that premiums on nearly every property, car and business could skyrocket. A report for the state Office of Insurance Regulation found that even a 50-year storm would cause extreme financial stress, especially given the current credit crunch.

Industry actuaries say the problem is simple: Florida’s insurance rates, high as they may be, are not high enough for a state with an estimated 25% of America’s high-risk property. Reinsurance rates are soaring, and private insurers like State Farm and Allstate have scaled back in Florida, forcing an additional 500,000 customers into the state pool. “For some areas in Florida, insurance companies could not obtain reinsurance at any price,” Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty recently told Congress. And last year, Republican Governor Charlie Crist pushed through reforms to decrease premiums, a politically popular move that will create even more pressure if disaster strikes. “I get the concerns,” Crist recently told me. “But we’re not going to stand for gouging.”

The gouging fears are understandable; McCarty told Congress that some insurers have insisted on 25% profit margins, while using computer models that overstate risk. But no one denies that the risk is real: it’s been 80 years since a major storm hit a major Florida city, but hurricane researchers have calculated that the next one could cause as much as $150 billion worth of damage. And Crist’s reforms, while reducing premiums, included other changes that increased the risk that taxpayers and policyholders will have to bail out the Cat Fund. “The risk was removed from the insurers’ portfolio and is now being supported by the people of Florida,” McCarty explained.

That’s why Crist and just about every other Florida politician is pushing for a national catastrophe insurance fund, which would shift some of that risk to federal taxpayers. But the idea is not so popular with other states, for the obvious reason that other states don’t have as much risk. Florida has spent the last 80 years ignoring its vulnerability, developing its floodplains and shorelines, selling the dream of the Sunshine State to northerners and foreigners. But the day of reckoning will come.

 

Allstate Claims from Fay: Preliminary Report from Florida

Allstate Claims from Fay: Preliminary Report from Florida

August 29, 2008

Allstate reports 1,443 homeowners’ claims and 701 auto claims as of August 29, 2008. In addition, Allstate is processing 377 NFIP claims.

HANNA SAVANNAH: Another Allstate Nightmare?

HANNA SAVANNAH: Another Allstate Nightmare?

SAVANNAH, Ga. – Nervous residents rushed to buy plywood and generators while emergency officials in Georgia, Florida and the Carolinas weighed possible evacuations Tuesday as Tropical Storm Hanna shifted toward a tough-to-predict landfall along the southern Atlantic coast by the end of the week.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist declared a state of emergency as Hannah, downgraded from hurricane status Tuesday but with ample time to regain strength, began a turn to the northwest from the Bahamas. Emergency officials in Georgia and South Carolina went into 24-hour alert mode.

In Savannah, which hasn’t seen a direct hit from a major hurricane in more than a century, Janey Miley took her 15-year-old daughter to Home Depot at lunchtime Tuesday for an impromptu lesson in hurricane preparedness.

They waited in a busy checkout line with a 5-gallon gas can, a circular saw and 10 sheets of plywood in case they needed to board up the windows of their home on nearby Tybee Island. A steady flow of customers pushed carts stocked with everything from batteries to 5,000-watt generators.

“We’ve never really bought plywood, but it seemed like maybe we’d better do it this time,” said Miley, 43, who had also booked hotel reservations in Columbia, S.C., in case her family needed to evacuate.

The National Hurricane Center predicted Hannah would most likely come ashore as a hurricane between Friday and Saturday somewhere between the east coast of Florida and the North Carolina coast. Forecasts Tuesday showed the storm making landfall near the Georgia-South Carolina border.

Local emergency officials for Savannah and surrounding Chatham County urged residents to have an evacuation plan ready. But no decisions on voluntary or mandatory evacuations were expected before Wednesday.

Ken Davis, spokesman for the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, said Hanna’s unpredictable path made it “a pretty difficult storm” for planners to gauge whether to order evacuations with just a day or two left to decide.

“We’re getting closer and closer to the point where decisions have to be made,” Davis said. “It’s a fine line between calling an evacuation and crying wolf.”

Davis said state officials were looking ahead to the possibility of turning Interstate 16 into a one-way escape route westward out of Savannah.

The highway bore the brunt of 2.5 million people fleeing Georgia, Florida and South Carolina when Hurricane Floyd menaced the coast in 1999.

The Georgia State Patrol has since equipped 115 miles of the interstate with orange-striped control gates, much like railroad crossing arms, that can be dropped at entrance ramps to block cars from traveling east during a one-way evacuation.

In Florida, where Hanna is the third storm to threaten in three weeks, Crist’s emergency declaration allows the state to more easily mobilize employees, law enforcement personnel and other resources. The governor said residents should prepare for possible flash floods and winds up to 111 mph.

The state Emergency Management Division in South Carolina was monitoring Hanna closely around the clock, but spokesman Derrec Becker said it was too early Tuesday to call for residents to flee.

“At this time there is still so much level of uncertainty, what we’re doing right now is simply paying attention to this storm,” Becker said.

Meanwhile, college administrators at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, S.C., and Charleston Southern University watched the storm for a possible call on whether to cancel football games Saturday, coaches at both schools said.

The North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries asked fishermen to monitor Hanna and two other tropical storms — Ike and Josephine — developing far out in the Atlantic. It said fishermen should remove gear such as nets and crab pots from the coastal waters ahead of storms and check their own safety equipment.

FEMA regional administrator Phil May said the agency will send federal liaisons and disaster response teams to Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina on Wednesday to prepare for Hanna.

FEMA is already pouring supplies and resources, like search and rescue teams, into the region. And it’s scrambling to move some supplies from the Gulf Coast back toward the Atlantic seaboard.

“We’ll be moving things that may have been in position for Gustav back this way in case of Hanna,” said May, who is based in Atlanta. “There’s a lot of moving parts.”

He said a team dispatched to Florida to deal with the remnants of Tropical Storm Fay will stay there to plan for Ike, which could threaten Florida after Hanna passes.

 

Tropical Storm Hanna – Unpredictable!

August 31, 2008

Frustration at Allstate: McKinsey Unable to Predict Hanna’s Path!

While powerful Hurricane Gustav bore down on the U.S. Gulf Coast on Sunday, Tropical Storm Hanna swirled east of Florida, embedded in a complicated climatic environment that made it impossible to forecast its destination and likely strength.

The eighth tropical storm of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season could just as easily end up over Cuba, bring heavy rainfall to citrus country in central Florida or drift northward toward South Carolina. It was not possible to say if the storm might eventually end up in the U.S. oil patch in the Gulf of Mexico, hurricane experts said.

“Unfortunately there is still considerable uncertainty with the forecast,” said Jamie Rhome, a hurricane specialist at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. “It’s impossible to say that this system is going to do this or that.”

The cyclone was tangled up in a middle to upper level low that was making it difficult for Hanna to develop, and was likely to slow down in two days when it came across conditions of weak steering current that could make it meander.

Another trough would then swoop over the tropical storm, bringing with it considerable uncertainty as to the likely wind shear as Hanna drifted near the Bahamas. Wind shear — the difference in wind speed at different levels of the atmosphere — can tear storms apart.

“At the end of the forecast track the wind shear could let up a bit,” Rhome said.

None of the computer models used to predict storm tracks actually took Hanna into the southeastern United States at this point, Rhome said.

Some oil analysts reported on Friday that one of the myriad computer models available to forecasters had indicated that Hanna could eventually make landfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast near New Orleans where Hurricane Gustav was expected to come ashore on Monday as a dangerous storm.

Those reports triggered concerns in energy markets of a potential one-two punch by Gustav and Hanna on some of the 4,000 Gulf of Mexico offshore platforms that provide a quarter of U.S. crude oil and 15 percent of its natural gas.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed more than 100 oil rigs in 2005 when they roared through, causing oil prices to soar to then record highs. Katrina went on to swamp New Orleans, kill 1,500 people on the U.S. Gulf Coast and cause $80 billion in damages.

Rhome said it was folly to highlight a single computer model, especially so far out. “It’s a mistake, and often a grave one, to focus on a single model,” he said.

The accuracy of hurricane forecasting has come a long way since the days when entire fleets of Spanish galleons sank in unexpected storms as they carried South American gold and treasure back to Europe.

But even with the start of “hurricane hunter” flights in 1944 and the advent of satellite imagery in the 1960s, long-range forecasts are prone to enormous margins of error.

The National Hurricane Center estimates the average error in its track forecasts is near 260 miles by day four and 345 miles by day five. The hurricane center does not project a storm’s track beyond day five.

Intensity forecasts are even more difficult. The hurricane center calculates that the error in its forecasts for a storm’s top sustained winds averages 23 miles per hour (37 km per hour) per day.

The last official forecast for Hanna takes it in five days to minimal Category 1 hurricane strength with 80-mile-per-hour (130 km per hour) winds by next Friday.

It might then be somewhere off central Florida. But its potential position at that point also encompasses the southern Bahamas, eastern Cuba, south Florida and South Carolina.

 

Allstate: Battle Stations!

August 28, 2008

As Tropical Storm Gustav spun toward the Gulf of Mexico Thursday, insurance companies were ready to send adjusters and appraisers to assess damage from the storm if it does make landfall in the United States. They were also prepared financially, having made changes in their coverage in the three years since Hurricane Katrina.

At State Farm Insurance Cos. headquarters in Bloomington, Ill., staff is on-call 24-hours a day while the company waits to see when and where Gustav will hit. Once a distinctive storm path is determined, more than 1,700 claims representatives will be sent into the affected area.

“We’re in a holding pattern, we are waiting to see where this thing is going to go,” said spokesman Kip Biggs.

Allstate Corp. and MetLife Inc. had catastrophe units as well as claims representatives en route to the Gulf region.

“We are preparing for Gustav to be a major event at this time,” said Tim Bowen, director of property claims at MetLife.

Meanwhile, after paying out $41 billion in claims payments since Katrina struck three years ago Friday, insurers have made sure they are financially ready for another storm; they have settled Katrina-related lawsuits, raised policy rates and also cut back on the insurance they offer in areas most vulnerable to tropical storms.

“Insurers have all taken a hard look at Katrina and made adjustments that they feel are appropriate,” said Robert Hartwig, an economist and president of the Insurance Information Institute, a New York-based industry group.

At Allstate, “we have reduced our exposure in coastal communities,” said Mike Siemienas, spokesman for the property, casualty and auto insurer. “We have 17 million households that we insure throughout the country and we need to make ensure we are not overexposed in any one area that is catastrophe prone.”

The value of coastal property exposed to hurricanes increased by 24 percent, or $1.7 trillion, from $7.2 trillion in 2004 to $8.9 trillion by the end of 2007, according to research and weather modeler AIR Worldwide Corp.

Gustav was not the only storm insurers were watching — on Thursday, Tropical Storm Hanna formed in the Atlantic, northeast of the northern Leeward Islands. It was too early to predict whether Hanna will threaten the United States, but Gustav was projected to become a major Category 3 hurricane over warm and deep Gulf waters, possibly hitting the Gulf Coast by early next week.

Katrina was the single largest natural disaster loss in the history of the insurance industry. Insurers paid $41 billion arising from 1.7 million claims for damage to homes, businesses and vehicles to policy holders in six states. Hurricane Andrew — the previous record holder — produced $15.5 billion in losses in 1992 and 790,000 claims.

Insurers typically keep money aside in order to pay claims that are much larger than a Katrina — or this summer’s Midwest flooding or California wildfires. “Insurers have to assume that a worst-case scenario can occur any year,” Hartwig said.

Disaster losses along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts are likely to escalate in the coming years because of huge increases in development and rising building and repair costs, he said. “While 2005 was by far the worse year ever for insured catastrophe losses in the U.S., future storms could prove even costlier, reaching upward of $100 billion.”

To help offset some of that amount, some insurance companies have raised rates, most taking effect later this year.

In July, State Farm said it will boost its homeowners insurance rates by 12 percent to 18 percent in several Alabama counties. Some 700 policies on the state’s coast will also lose State Farm’s wind coverage over two years.

Earlier this month, two separate divisions of Allstate said they would raise homeowners’ rates for wind and hail coverage in Mississippi by an average of 13.9 percent and 14.1 percent, respectively.

State Farm is also raising homeowner rates in Mississippi by a statewide average of 13.6 percent, but State Farm policyholders without wind coverage will not see a rate increase.

Reasons for the increases: The rising risk and cost of doing business, State Farm’s Biggs said.

“In order to make claims we’ve got to have the money in place to be able to take care of people in a time of need,” he said.

To limit their exposure to catastrophic losses from natural disasters, many insurers in coastal states are selling homeowners policies with percentage deductibles for storm damage instead of traditional dollar deductibles, which are used for other types of losses such as fire damage and theft. Percentage deductibles are based on the home’s insured value.

There are also percentage deductibles for wind damage, varying from 1 percent of a home’s insured value to 5 percent. In some coastal areas with high wind risk, hurricane deductibles may be as high as 25 percent.

Mass settlements of homeowners’ lawsuits and a series of favorable court rulings have helped the insurance industry come close to resolving Katrina claims by the storm’s third anniversary.

Earlier this month, State Farm settled with Mississippi regulators over how the insurer handled Katrina damage claims in the state. State Farm has agreed to reopen some claims and pay more than $74 million more to Gulf Coast policyholders whose homes were destroyed by Katrina’s storm surge.

Two weeks ago, Florida settled an insurance dispute with Allstate, giving homeowners insured by the company an additional 5.6 percent rate cut. Allstate also agreed to insure 100,000 more Florida homeowners against hurricanes and other perils, forgive a $175 million loan to its Florida subsidiary and pay a $5 million fine.

 

Tropical Storm Gustav: Allstate’s Labor Day Disaster?

Tropical Storm Gustav: Allstate’s Labor Day Disaster?

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Tropical Storm Gustav churns toward Haiti

First it was Fay. Now, keep an eye on Gustav, which is headed in our general direction, forecasters said.

BY EVAN S. BENN – ebenn@MiamiHerald.com 

For the second time in two weeks, hurricane warnings and watches were posted around Haiti as a potent tropical storm threatened to unload two feet of rain and severe wind on Tuesday.

And though Tropical Storm Gustav is hundreds of miles from Florida, its five-day forecast cone could spell trouble for South Florida and the Keys during the tourist-heavy Labor Day weekend.

Gustav, the seventh named storm of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season, quickly developed Monday into near-hurricane strength with 70 mph winds, according to an 11 p.m. advisory from the National Hurricane Center.

As the night went on, computer models shifted Gustav’s projected path more to the west — making South Florida a less likely target but still within the forecast cone, which is subject to wide margins of error.

”Once you get into the cone, people pay very, very close attention,” said Andy Newman, spokesman for the Monroe County Tourist Development Council. “I think it’s prudent to pay attention, but hopefully the forecast track shifts even further so we get out of the cone well before Labor Day weekend comes.”

For now, forecasters expect Gustav to strengthen into a hurricane overnight Monday and cross southwestern Haiti with at least 75 mph winds on Tuesday. It spent the day churning over warm ocean water and was encountering very little wind shear — conditions favorable for intensification.

Forecasters upgraded Gustav from a tropical wave to a depression to a storm within three hours Monday because its winds had jumped from 35 mph to 70 mph and an eye began to form.

”It is very well defined, very tight,” Hurricane Center Director Bill Read said.

The shorter-term track projected Gustav to hit the southern coast of Cuba, not far from Guantánamo Bay on Wednesday as a Category 1 hurricane. At the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, spokesman Bruce Lloyd reported that military staff started inspecting hurricane shelters on Monday afternoon as a precaution.

Officials declared the 45-square-mile American outpost in the Caribbean at Condition Three — a medium alert that let the 8,000 or so residents know that hurricane-force winds were possible within 48 hours and they should begin checking their supplies. There was no immediate word from officials at the sometimes secretive prison camps there, run under separate Pentagon management, on whether guards were considering moving some detainees to more secure sites.

Tropical Storm Gustav was about 150 miles south-southeast of Port-au-Prince on Monday evening and heading northwest at 12 mph. It has the potential to drench Haiti with 15 to 25 inches of rain, forecasters said. Although longer-range forecast tracks are subject to error, if the storm were to continue on its current path, it could affect South Florida by Sunday.

That would be less than two weeks after Tropical Storm Fay made its first of four landfalls in Florida, soaking the state and causing significant flooding and 11 deaths in Central and North Florida. On Monday, federal emergency managers approved up to $20 million for cleanup and humanitarian aid in Florida for Fay.

Also on Monday, U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez visited with forecasters at the hurricane center in West Miami-Dade County for a briefing on Fay and an update on the then-unnamed Gustav.

”Even without reaching the height of a major hurricane, Fay did an awful lot of damage to Florida,” Martinez said. “And now there does appear to be another tropical storm that could come into our neighborhood.”

 

Fay: Allstate’s Good Hands or Boxing Gloves? Only Time Will Tell!

August 23, 2008:

The Army Corps of Engineers in New Orleans, Louisiana, activated its flood-watch teams Saturday in anticipation of Tropical Storm Fay’s westward movement.

The storm has battered the central and upper coast of Florida with heavy rain and severe flooding. It has been blamed for 11 Florida deaths and one in Georgia.

Fay, which hugged Florida’s Gulf Coast on Saturday, is expected to make landfall north of Lake Pontchartrain on Sunday afternoon and move west into Baton Rouge on Monday and Tuesday, the National Hurricane Center said. The lake is west of New Orleans.

Teams will “mobilize to their duty stations 8 a.m. Sunday and monitor canals and levees in the city,” the Corps said in a statement Saturday.

Col. Alvin Lee, New Orleans District commander, said the actions were “precautionary measures for the safety of the public.”

“We are prepared to close the gates and run the pumps should the need arise.”

After Hurricane Katrina flooded most of New Orleans in 2005, the Corps took responsibility for not having built sufficient levees against flooding.

The hurricane center predicts heavy rain and isolated flooding next week in southeastern Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, the Florida panhandle and Mississippi.

At 5 p.m. ET Saturday, the center of Fay was about 105 miles east of Mobile, Alabama. Forecasters said it would move over the western Florida Panhandle today and tonight, and near or over the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and Alabama on Sunday.

Mobile County opened five shelters and called in swift-water rescue teams in anticipation of flooding, said Steve Huffman, spokesman for the county’s emergency management agency.

“The storm is actually weakening; that’s not to say we’re not going to have rain,” Huffman said. “We’re still expecting some flooding because of this. We’ve got everything on standby. Hopefully it won’t come to that.”

The hurricane center said isolated areas of eastern Louisiana could get 20 inches of rain. In Florida, rainfall totals by Friday afternoon reached 26.65 inches in Melbourne, 22.83 at Cape Canaveral and 20.75 at Palm Shores.

Water was waist-deep Friday in parts of Fort Pierce, Florida, more than halfway down the state’s 1,200-mile Atlantic coast from Jacksonville.

Fay is expected to produce rainfall accumulations of 6 to 12 inches over the next two days across the western portion of northern Florida, the Florida Panhandle, southwestern Georgia, the southern and central portions of Mississippi and Alabama and eastern Louisiana, the hurricane center said.

“Regardless of its exact track, Fay will be moving rather slowly during the next several days, posing a significant heavy rainfall and flood hazard to a very large area,” the hurricane center said.

The storm made its sixth landfall Saturday morning — its fourth in Florida — as it moved slowly westward at a 7-mph pace.

“It’s making me miserable,” said Lauren Bowers, who was at work at the Boston Market restaurant in Tallahassee, Florida, as rain fell in sheets. “I’d rather be at home than at work.”

Bowers was at Daytona Beach, Florida, this week when Fay struck there. Then the storm swung back, heading west.

“I thought I’d be done with it,” she said. “You just feel soggy.”

Another death was reported in Cairo, Georgia — about 35 miles north of Tallahassee, Florida — where a teenager playing near a drainage area was swept away in rising waters, the National Weather Service reported.

Fay’s sustained winds remained at 45 mph, with higher gusts. No major change in intensity was expected in the next 24 to 36 hours, although the storm could wander into the Gulf and make landfall again in Perdido Key before leaving Florida,

Isolated tornadoes were possible Saturday in parts of northern Florida, southern Georgia and southern Alabama. Tornado watches were posted for parts of Georgia and Florida until 3 p.m.

Longer-range forecast models suggest Fay will continue westward until Tuesday, when it is likely to turn north and east as a tropical depression.

Fay’s torrential rainfall and powerful winds struck southern and central Florida from the Gulf to the Atlantic this week before turning west and recrossing the state, leaving floodwaters that have caused millions of dollars in damage.

A tropical storm warning remained for the northeastern Gulf coast from Suwanee River, Florida, westward to the mouth of the Mississippi. A warning means tropical storm conditions are expected within the next 24 hours.

A tropical storm watch, which anticipates storm conditions within 36 hours, was in effect from the mouth of the Mississippi River to Grand Isle, Louisiana, including New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain, forecasters said.

Up to 4 feet of storm surge flooding above normal tide levels was possible in areas of onshore winds, forecasters said.

Florida officials said Saturday that they have requested a presidential declaration for areas hit by Fay that would provide individual assistance to eligible residents.

President Bush has approved an emergency declaration for all counties in Florida. That money can be used for debris removal and other costs associated with the storm.

Fay: Were You in Good Hands With Allstate?

August 22, 2008

Were you in good hands with Allstate?

The storm’s death toll rose to six in Florida and nearly 30 overall since Fay first struck in the Caribbean. Florida officials said four people died in traffic accidents in the heavy rain and two others drowned in surf kicked up by the storm. Before the storm ever blew through the state, a man testing generators as a precaution also was killed.

Tens of thousands of people from Melbourne to Jacksonville to Gainesville were still without electricity, and residents of Florida’s storm-stricken Atlantic coast faced a weekend of cleanup after chest-high flooding. Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty said so far nearly 4,000 flood claims from Fay had been filed.

“The damage from Fay is a reminder that a tropical storm does not have to reach a hurricane level to be dangerous and cause significant damage,” said Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who toured flooded communities this week.

On Friday, Crist asked the White House to elevate the disaster declaration President Bush issued Thursday to a major disaster declaration. Crist said the storm damaged 1,572 homes in Brevard County alone, dropping 25 inches of rain in Melbourne.

 

Is Allstate Ready for Fay?

PORT ST. LUCIE, Florida [August 20, 2008] While residents were rescued by airboats from their homes Wednesday in southeast Florida, Tropical Storm Fay churned in the Atlantic ocean likely gearing for a return to dump more water on the state this week.

As many as 8,000 homes in two low-lying areas may have been damaged, the St. Lucie County Public Safety Department said.

“We’ve never seen anything like this,” Sheriff Ken Mascara said, adding that officials had expected the storm to follow a more northern path.

“Last night the eye actually skirted St. Lucie County. We were on the southside of the eye,” Mascara said.

“It actually became stationary last night at one point, and that’s the reason why we have so much water today. We thought we’d get maybe 4 or 5 inches of rain with this weather, and we got closer to 15.”

Near the north fork of the St. Lucie River, water gushed down streets and lapped at the doors of parked cars.

Meg Defore said that the first floor of her home was 14 feet above ground but water had reached the top of her doors. She left in a small boat.

Meanwhile, Susan Thul sat on her porch, waving to passers-by. She vowed to stay in her house because she said the water reportedly had reached its highest point.

In Melbourne, where a 50-year-old rainfall record was shattered, residents have been warned of an alligator swimming in the streets, according to WKMG-TV in Orlando.

An unofficial report said nearly 22 inches of rain fell just northwest of Melbourne, the hurricane center said.

The flooding comes after Fay moved off Florida’s coastline and churned in warm inland waters. The storm’s worst winds are mostly over the water, but Fay is expected to stay the same strength and turn northwest back toward Florida in the next day, the National Hurricane Center said.

“This storm is going to be with us for a while,” Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said. “Looks like it could be a boomerang storm.”

Fay is expected to produce rainfall amounts of 5 to 10 inches over east-central and northeastern Florida, with possible maximum amounts of 30 inches in some areas. Three to 6 inches of rain were possible over southeastern Georgia. Watch the path of the storm

At 2 p.m. ET Wednesday, the storm’s maximum sustained winds were near 50 mph (85 kilometers) with higher gusts, forecasters said.

The center of the storm was stalling 15 miles (24 kilometers) north of Cape Canaveral, the hurricane center said. Fay had been traveling north at 3 mph (5 kph) but remained nearly stationary for hours.

Fay moved off Florida’s east coast early Wednesday after spawning at least seven reported tornadoes that ripped across sections of the state, the center said.

Crist confirmed the first storm-related death. A 54-year-old man died from carbon monoxide fumes while testing two gasoline-powered generators in his home in anticipation of the storm, Crist said, quoting a medical examiner.

A tropical storm warning is in effect for Florida’s east coast, from north of Flagler Beach to Altamaha Sound in Georgia, and a tropical storm watch is in effect north of Altamaha Sound to the Savannah River.

The storm caused officials to close Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral for the second day. Space station managers shut down the launch facility “because of the potential wind threat to workers,” NASA said in a statement on its Web site. Managers reported no injuries or damage.

The storm is expected to make a turn north in the next 12 to 24 hours, likely remaining on the edge of east-central or northeastern Florida until Thursday, the center said. 

Fay buffeted Lake Okeechobee with high winds Tuesday afternoon as it moved north and northeast through Florida, leaving a trail of flooding, broken trees and tens of thousands of power outages.

At least seven tornadoes, spinoffs from Fay, were reported in eastern Florida.

A Brevard County tornado that hit about 1:45 p.m. damaged more than 50 homes, rendering nine of them uninhabitable, according to the county’s emergency operations center. Three people sustained minor injuries. 

A possible twister hit Wellington in Palm Beach County, where a small barn was ripped from its foundation, authorities said.

Steve Delai, deputy chief of Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue, said he could not confirm a tornado had hit the southeast county but added the damage was “consistent with a tornado.” 

In Vero Beach, surfers called authorities upon finding a beached whale after Fay moved through the area.

Fay came ashore early Tuesday at Cape Romano south of Marco Island on Florida’s southwestern coast after making landfall Sunday night in western Cuba and then again Monday afternoon over Key West.