Alberta Flood Watch 2013

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Shoot me if that ever happens, specifically the garage part.

Also in the name of progress we demolish some of the oldest homes in the city to build new flood proof ones? How about we fix the infrastructure problem that caused the flooding and endeavour to keep some of our old buildings around instead?

OT response to your post, but did you get any resolution to your house?

[Bigtime]

fotze, you and I get along just fine.

[NuclearPizzaMan]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Shoot me if that ever happens, specifically the garage part.

Also in the name of progress we demolish some of the oldest homes in the city to build new flood proof ones? How about we fix the infrastructure problem that caused the flooding and endeavour to keep some of our old buildings around instead?

Probably because of the gigantic mega cost involved.

[Slava]

Isn't insurance stepping in and covering a lot of this anyway? Seems like the fact that the province doesn't want to pay for future losses is sort of a moot point if people are being covered by insurers anyway?

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Slava

Isn't insurance stepping in and covering a lot of this anyway? Seems like the fact that the province doesn't want to pay for future losses is sort of a moot point if people are being covered by insurers anyway?

I realize a lot of this is earmarked for infrastructure etc. , but a good portion of the 1 Billion (with a B) for flood relief is going to supporting homeowners.

http://alberta.ca/recoveryinformation.cfm

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Slava

Isn't insurance stepping in and covering a lot of this anyway? Seems like the fact that the province doesn't want to pay for future losses is sort of a moot point if people are being covered by insurers anyway?

Some insurers are only covering half the damage. If you have a overland flooding and sewage, then they are often covering up to the ground, and the rest is the homeowners responsibility.

So in High River, where the waterline is 2 metres or more, the basement damage is covered up to the hgt of the ground on the foundation, some are making the basement ceiling the cut off.

There are plenty of people that have damage/loss that is not completely covered by insurance.

[stazzy33]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Shoot me if that ever happens, specifically the garage part.

Also in the name of progress we demolish some of the oldest homes in the city to build new flood proof ones? How about we fix the infrastructure problem that caused the flooding and endeavour to keep some of our old buildings around instead?

What kind of infrastructure fixes are you thinking of? Looking at what happened, there was very little that could have been done to prevent the flooding.

[Ice_Weasel]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

Some insurers are only covering half the damage. If you have a overland flooding and sewage, then they are often covering up to the ground, and the rest is the homeowners responsibility.

So in High River, where the waterline is 2 metres or more, the basement damage is covered up to the hgt of the ground on the foundation, some are making the basement ceiling the cut off.

There are plenty of people that have damage/loss that is not completely covered by insurance.

Not to mention most policies have sub-limits for sewer backup so even though you may think your house is insured for $500k you have a $15k limit for sewer.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

Some insurers are only covering half the damage. If you have a overland flooding and sewage, then they are often covering up to the ground, and the rest is the homeowners responsibility.

So in High River, where the waterline is 2 metres or more, the basement damage is covered up to the hgt of the ground on the foundation, some are making the basement ceiling the cut off.

There are plenty of people that have damage/loss that is not completely covered by insurance.

Originally Posted by Ice_Weasel

Not to mention most policies have sub-limits for sewer backup so even though you may think your house is insured for $500k you have a $15k limit for sewer.

Would/is the government steeping in to add to coverage though? I thought that this was an either/or situation.

[MissTeeks]

Lots of money raised from the Stampede's "Hell or High Water" t-shirts:

http://calgary.ctvnews.ca/red-cross-...tion-1.1367945

The official “Hell or High Water” T-shirt sold like hotcakes and on Monday officials presented a cheque for $2.1 Million to the Canadian Red Cross Alberta Flood Fund on behalf of the community.

“This was an unprecedented fundraising campaign for the Calgary Stampede,” said Vern Kimball, CEO of the Calgary Stampede. “We anticipated the campaign would be successful, however, we never anticipated presenting a cheque of this amount to the Canadian Red Cross. It is truly overwhelming.”

150,000 of the shirts were sold and the initiative was supported by a number of companies and individuals who donated their services, expertise and time to make the T-shirts and get them out to the public.

[Ice_Weasel]

Originally Posted by Slava

Would/is the government steeping in to add to coverage though? I thought that this was an either/or situation.

My understanding is that it is not 'either/or', although those that receive insurance proceeds will ultimately receive less from the government than they may have otherwise.

[kevman]

Originally Posted by stazzy33

What kind of infrastructure fixes are you thinking of? Looking at what happened, there was very little that could have been done to prevent the flooding.

Well every community is obviously different but in the case of Sunnyside where most residents flooded from sewer failure there are probably a few relatively inexpensive things that can be done.

• Cleaning the storm sewers would be a good start - apparently they're running around 50% because of age and sediment.

• Increasing the pump station capacity wouldn't hurt. The gates close when the rivers are high which makes sense but not having the pumping capacity to even clear a modest 10mm storm doesn't make much sense.

• Isolating the local storm sewers could also help protect the community. 10mm of rain in a community with closed storm drains causes some minor local flooding in low spots. 10mm of rain in a bunch of communities that all runs down the hill to the community with closed storm drains causes catastrophic flooding in an entire community.

It's probably more complicated than that but it's also more complicated than abandoning entire communities of prime real estate near the cities down town core.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by MissTeeks

Lots of money raised from the Stampede's "Hell or High Water" t-shirts:

http://calgary.ctvnews.ca/red-cross-...tion-1.1367945

Glad I picked one up, even though I will likely never wear it after last week. That's a good chunk of change.

[Northendzone]

As an aside, it will be interesting to see if property insurers tighten up their policy wording in the wake of what has happened

[octothorp]

I don't really have a problem with the general principle of homeowners being required to make certain upgrades in order to guarantee eligibility for future flood support. And I say that as someone living in a flood fringe area.

At its best, this could function much like an insurance policy for overland flooding, which isn't covered by insurance companies but which I would buy if it were available. Some sort of agreement where I make required changes to my house, and as long as those changes are maintained (checked on by the province on a reasonable, 5-10 year schedule), the house is essentially insured for its full value through the government in the case of overland flooding. Exact details could vary, but the point is it all needs to be very contractual between home-owners and the province.

At its worst, the danger is for this to be a poorly defined and implemented system, where home owners are told what changes to make, but not given any sort of real agreement on how much they are covered for, or on the term through which they're covered.

Here in Sunnyside, I don't think it makes much sense on a house-by-house level anyway. If water breaches the berm for an extended period of time, we're all going under, and there's not much we can do to individual houses to protect against that. Changes like sump pumps and backflow prevention valves might mitigate sewer flooding, but that should be between me and my insurance company; it won't do anything in regards to the sort of mitigation the province is talking about.

[macrov]

What bothers me is that I feel that the floods can be broken down into 3 distinct issues, and province isn't really addressing them individually.

1) Some properties are in flood zones and probably shouldn't have basements, or even homes at all. Homes along the elbow are the perfect example of this. But, if the government isn't going to cover them, then they should get a large discount on property taxes. I mean a lot of these homes come with 10 000$ + property taxes. And most of these taxes end up subsidizing the rest of the city. And now that they're in trouble, the city doesn't want to subsidize them back? That is unacceptable. It's kind of like insurance; if you're not going to be covered, you shouldn't have to pay in. End of story.

2) For many other properties this was a tail event. It wouldn't have been cost effective to put in place measures to protect much of the property that was affected; its cheaper to simply rebuild the property every 300 years in event of this magnitude of flooding. So , should community based measures be put in place like better infrasturcutre? Yes. Should you put houses on stilts at a cost of 30 000 per house and infill basements? No.

3) For many properties, the fault lies with everyone via the province and the city for prioritizing less important infrastructure projects over the maintainence and upgrading of storm infrastructure. Sunnyside is the perfect example of this. Arguably, for these homes, the city and province should pick up the entire tab, because these homes flooded due to poor policy.

[Slava]

^ you do realise that people pay property taxes for a lot of reasons, and being bailed out isn't high on that list (most of the time)? Its pretty hard to suggest that because someone pays taxes they can expect a bailout.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Shoot me if that ever happens, specifically the garage part.

Also in the name of progress we demolish some of the oldest homes in the city to build new flood proof ones? How about we fix the infrastructure problem that caused the flooding and endeavour to keep some of our old buildings around instead?

Are you an inner city person against densification? All of the hundred year old homes on subdividable lots need to be bull dozed and infilled. Perferably with higher density than just 2 SFH.

Infastructure isnt going to stop this from happening again. If there is a plan that is cost compitive with rebuild flood plain homes properly then I am all for it. If it is cheaper to flood proof and rebuild then we should do that. Keeping hundred year old homes just contributes to sprawl, increases power and heating consumption and now as we can see are at a higher risk of flooding.

If this can be fixed buy increasing berm heights on the bow and putting bike paths on them sign me up but otherwise forcing home owners to build better with assistance from the province is better.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Slava

Would/is the government steeping in to add to coverage though? I thought that this was an either/or situation.

I would say that you should still get gov't funding for the damage not covered by your insurer but cannot say for sure.

[OldDutch]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

I would say that you should still get gov't funding for the damage not covered by your insurer but cannot say for sure.

Yes, the gov't funding will cover additional to insurance. Anything outside your house, like a detached garage is not covered by anyone I know in any circumstance. Same with landscaping.

Gov't funding will cover removal of landscaping due to damage, or they may pay to fix damaged items on your property within a limit. For example, they are giving $300 for damaged TV's so I don't think it is much but is something along those lines.

I got this info from the flood relief registration at the red and white.