S2 E2. Navigating Florida's Post-Hurricane Housing Market

One month after Hurricanes Hela and Milton, the Buying Tampa Bay Podcast hosts Peter Murphy and Chase Clark, along with guest Connor Kincaid, discuss the aftermath of the storms and their effects on the Tampa Bay housing market. They cover topics such as insurance coverage (or lack thereof), the permitting and rebuilding process, and the devastating impact on homeowners. They also discuss the unexpected nature of the storms, the inadequate public infrastructure, and the importance of community support in times of crisis

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Episode Transcript

Peter Murphy (00:04):
Hello and welcome to the Buying Tampa Bay podcast.
We're your hosts, peter Murphyand Chase Clark, and we have
Connor Kincaid with us as aguest on the show today.
So welcome to the show, connor.
Just over one month ago, thewest coast of Florida, including
Tampa Bay, was hit by a Cat 3hurricane.
One week prior, a Cat 4, helene, struck Florida's Big Bend.

(00:26):
Each storm, helene and Miltonbrought with it catastrophic
storm surge and winds, and formillions of Florida residents it
was a first in a recent memoryrun-in with a major hurricane.
One month later, we're wellinto the recovery efforts and
for most of us life has returnedto some semblance of normalcy.

(00:46):
But lessons have been learnedand humility has certainly been
doled out, and we're here todayto share some information with
you in the aftermath of therecovery efforts of Milton and
Helene, as well as how thesestorms have affected the Tampa
Bay housing market.
So, chase, great to be backwith you.
Man, what a month.

Chase Clark (01:04):
Yeah, exactly, it's been a crazy month.
It's hard to even keep thetimeline straight, can't believe
that it's been a month, and thefirst 10 days or so of this
month were quite crazy becauseof the storms.
So many things to talk abouttoday related to that,
especially now in hindsight,being able to get a little bit
more clarity about what happenedand what the aftermath really

(01:27):
looks like.
So looking forward to talkingabout that today.

Peter Murphy (01:30):
Great and Connor, welcome to the show to you as
well.
Tell us a little bit aboutyourself so the audience can get
to know you.

Conor Kincaid (01:36):
Yeah, it's good to be here with you guys.
So I'm a student at FloridaCollege studying finance, so
these are some topics that arepretty close to my heart and
going along with some of thethings that I'm learning, and
I'm thankful for the opportunityto be with you guys today.

Peter Murphy (01:54):
Well, we're really glad to have you, and you've
probably pulled yourself rightin at a great time, because, as
soon as these storms hit, whatwas on top of everyone's mind
was the whole insurance market.
And well, so what have we beendiscovering so far about
insurance, as we've watched ourfriends and our clients go
through the damage process, nowthe adjustment process.
Well, tell us a little bitabout what we've been

(02:17):
experiencing there, and havetheir insurance tools paid out.
Has that made their liveseasier?
What have they discovered fromtheir insurance?
Tell us a little bit about that.

Conor Kincaid (02:30):
Right.
So there's a couple ofdifferent factors, and one of
the main factors is it's underFlorida law that each home
insurance will cover winddamages from a hurricane, so
like shingles coming off of theroof.
Anything in that regard wouldbe covered under Florida law by

(02:53):
their homeowner's insurancepolicy.
But the unfortunate thing isjust a normal home insurance
policy does not cover flooddamages and, as we can see from
the aftermath of the storm,that's been a majority of the

(03:15):
damages caused here.
So it would take an extra floodpolicy to have that covered
under the insurance, under theinsurance.
So what we're seeing is a lotof these homeowners, or even
tenants, are not insuredproperly, so maybe we can talk
about how to bring someawareness to that as well.

Chase Clark (03:37):
Yeah, that's.
One of the unique things aboutthese storms is that, especially
with Milton, we sawcatastrophic flooding here in
the Tampa Bay area and areasthat are not typically flood
prone and where people are notin designated flood zones and so
, therefore, they're notrequired to have flood insurance
and many of them don't most ofthem don't, I would say and the

(03:59):
effects of the flooding thatcame after, you know, we had
Helene come through and and thenyou know, a week later we have
Milton come through, which issomething that I don't think
anybody expected.
We haven't seen flooding likethis in my lifetime around here
and many of the lifetimes ofsome of the older people that
have been in these areas for 30,40, 50 years.
Some even said that this islike a 200 year flood in some of

(04:22):
these areas, and so not justthe 100 year flood level, but
the 200 year flood level,whatever that might be.
I think we saw it this time andunfortunately, as you said, so
many people were left uninsured,with tons of damage to their
homes.

Peter Murphy (04:38):
Yeah, and it's interesting, right, because it's
not like folks hadn't boughtinsurance, like everyone I know,
because most folks have loanson their homes, have had to buy
some form of insurance, and sothey bought this as educated as
they thought they were withwhatever insurance components
made them feel safe and satisfytheir lenders.

(04:58):
And then this major storm eventcomes around and I think what
was the most shocking for me,what was the most shocking for
many of our clients, is that,after all the premiums that they
have been paying, theircoverage just didn't include
anywhere close to what theythought it would include.
And, for example, like thefolks who had hurricane coverage
and thought they had asatisfactory level of hurricane

(05:19):
coverage, of course, when yourroof is damaged and shingles are
blown off it, well before thatinsurance policy pays out,
you've got a really heftyhurricane deductible that's got
to be applied first, and in manycases that hurricane deductible
is so staggeringly large thatthere isn't coverage paying out.

(05:40):
There is no insurance payingout for many of these smaller
hurricane-related damages thatare happening to homes, and
folks are shocked because theythought they had coverage enough
to pay for the damages whenthey arrived.

Conor Kincaid (05:53):
Yeah, I think.
Another nuance that I noticedis, like I mentioned earlier,
even if they had a hurricane,wind coverage that does to an
extent cover some water damagein the house, but you have to
prove that the water damage wascaused because of the wind

(06:15):
damage.
So, for instance, if your roofgets blown off because of the
wind and then rain damageseverything in the house, and
then rain damages everything inthe house that would be covered
under a normal homeowner policy,but not flooding that comes up
from the bottom or from the pondin your backyard, that sort of
thing.

Chase Clark (06:32):
Yeah, that's right.
You know, and I don't know ifpeople recognize this reality
all the time, when they sign upfor their homeowner's insurance
or decide to buy a policy, thathurricane deductible is anywhere
from like two to 5% of theinsured value of your home the
replacement cost value and soyou're talking about premiums
that can be anywhere from inthis case, in this market,

(06:52):
typically six to twenty thousanddollars for just the deductible
related to wind damage, andthat deductible kicks in any
time.
There's a named storm.
It can be a tropical storm, itcan be a hurricane.
If there's a name associatedwith that storm, then that
larger than normal deductibleapplies Outside of that wind

(07:14):
event from a named storm.
Most of our deductibles are$1,000, $1,500, $2,500, maybe
$5,000, even on the high end,$500, maybe $5,000, even on the
high end, and so you're talkingabout a significant difference
in the amount of money you'llreceive from the insurance
company for damages because ofthat name storm, hurricane
deductible element.
And there are many differencesin what it will actually cover.

(07:38):
But one of the big ones I saw onthis was even people with flood
insurance separate fromhomeowners people that had a
flood insurance policy don'trealize that there's two aspects
to it.
One is structural and one iscontents, and so we saw so many
people in this area have theirhomes flooded out completely
Structurally.

(07:58):
There wasn't a ton of damagenecessarily.
You're talking drywall, you'retalking carpet, you're talking
soft wood surfaces, cabinets,things like that.
But the bulk of the expense forthese people are their
possessions, their contents thatthey'd have to now replace
their furniture, their clothing,their beds, their you know, all

(08:19):
of the things that you know.
Sometimes you don't add up on alist how much that stuff might
be worth or how much it mightcost you to replace the contents
.
Most people aren't required tohave contents flood coverage,
even if you're in a flood zone.
They're just required to havethe structural element.
And these weren't the kinds offloods like we saw in North
Carolina with Helene, wherewater was racing down mountains

(08:41):
and literally sweeping up housesand cars and moving them down
the street.
This was water that was slowlyrising an inch or two every hour
until it finally infiltratedthe interior of these homes and
sat there for three, four, fivedays.
Some of these homes up in DadeCity along the Withlacoochee
River still have water sittingin them a month later along the

(09:04):
Withlacoochee River, still havewater sitting in them a month
later, and so the contentsportion of the flood policy
became very important for peopleto have no-transcript.

Peter Murphy (09:16):
It's been really devastating to watch.
Any community that goes throughsomething like this experiences,
I think, a little bit of whatwe have here, and that's that
day after the storm you've gotthat shock event where your home
has standing water in it andyou're doing everything you can
to save your personal belongings, and then that water subsides,
hopefully, and you're then facedwith that insurance adjuster

(09:39):
and that conversation with yourinsurance agent and what just so
many people are finding out isthat there's just inadequate
dollars in their insurancepayout potential to get them
anywhere close to being maderight again.
And so you've got some otherwonderful safety nets that have
kicked in.
Here in Tampa there have beenwonderful social support that

(10:00):
we've seen coming from people'schurch groups and extended
networks.
We've seen GoFundMe campaignsthat have been created to help
bridge the gaps.
We've seen FEMA kick in just alittle bit with some of the
flood damage to homes I mean notmuch, but it's there and of
course then small amounts ofinsurance in the event that
someone truly had a flood policy.
But so much of this recoveryeffort is falling square on the

(10:23):
shoulders of the homeownersthemselves and that they're
having to pay for that cost outof pocket.
It's really devastating towatch, and so our hearts go out
to everyone who's been affectedby this.

Chase Clark (10:34):
Yeah, our neighborhood that we live in was
hit really bad by flooding fromBaker Creek and we have some
good friends that were floodedout of their home and one of the
most shocking things that wasrevealed to them during the
process of talking to theadjuster for their flood policy
is that, by law, these adjustershave 45 days in which to get

(10:56):
their reports done and submittedto the insurance company.
45 days, I mean, that's anincredible amount of time when
you're talking about beingdisplaced from your home, having
your stuff completely floodedout, having nowhere to go.
And FEMA does step in to someextent, but there's lodging
reimbursement.
They were putting people up inhotels, but it was for a very

(11:19):
finite period of time, and so ifyour adjuster takes 45 days to
submit your damage report to theinsurance company and then they
take a week or two to turnaround and issue you a check,
some people are going to be twomonths into the devastation of
this before they can even beginto hire contractors to come in
and start repairing their homes.

Peter Murphy (11:39):
Can even begin to hire contractors to come in and
start repairing their homes,right.
Yeah, that's what we've seen,and you're definitely living
with some friends for a while ifthat's where you are down here.
So it's been kind of a nicecommunal living opportunity, but
certainly unexpected, you know,and maybe we should pay a
little bit of attention to thatidea of the unexpected nature of
this.
You know, the Tampa Bay areahadn't been hit by a direct

(12:01):
storm in about 100 years.
We'd had a storm that had comeclose and we've had storms that
have kind of cut through theperipheries of the greater Tampa
area, but Tampa proper had notreceived a direct hit and there
was a wobble at the end of thisstorm's trajectory which brought
it a little bit south of us.
And so once again, we werespared the brunt of what it
could have been.

(12:21):
When Hurricane Milton camethrough, hurricane Helene didn't
even come through, she sat inthe Gulf of Mexico and brought
storm surge that devastated ourcoastal lands and swept away our
dunes, washed away our beaches.
So in both of these cases wewere just left, I think,

(12:45):
staggered at the power and thepotential destructive energy of
these storms and grateful, to anextent, that we didn't receive
the full brunt of them.
It was just something to watch.

Chase Clark (12:51):
Yeah, no doubt.
For years, decades, even now,people have tried to speculate
why do these storms turn right?
And for us a little bit north,they did.
Sorry for the people down insarasota, osprey, venice area
that got hit directly by thisstorm.
Um tampa bay, for whateverreason, doesn't have one, like
you said, go up the mouth of thebay in 100 years that we know

(13:14):
of on record, and had this stormdone that, can you only imagine
what the impact would have beenlike then, because I've lived
in Florida my whole life and Ican tell you that, being in the
area just northeast of whereMilton hit, you know it's just
the worst, probably worst damage, worst wind field, worst

(13:37):
sustained winds that I'veexperienced in any storm here in
Florida so far.

Peter Murphy (13:43):
Well, talk a little bit about the
construction realities you'veseen.
We've mentioned that that waswhere everyone is right now.
They're in the midst of thereconstruction from the damages.
And how has that looked?
How have supplies been trendingand vendors and the permitting
process, and what have we allseen about that?
Let's share on that a littlebit.

Chase Clark (14:02):
Yeah, one thing that's been very interesting is
if you watch the news everynight, they're trying to keep
people informed about permittingprocesses throughout different
municipalities around the BayArea and they're all just
slightly different.
You know, the first thing thatmost people did, especially if
you were flooded out, was to getyour place dried out as fast as
you can.
Get the drywall cut no higherthan four feet up on the wall,

(14:27):
unless you had flooding thatexceeded that.
But most people did not.
Get the fans in there, thedehumidifiers, get the
sanitation done for whateverkind of bacteria and mold growth
may have infiltrated your homeor may be starting to grow on
your two by fours on the back ofyour drywall.
Get your place secured.
Get your electric turned off ifit wasn't already hopefully it
was off before it flooded.

(14:47):
Get your water pipe secured allof those kinds of things.
That's the first initial stepto getting on the road to
recovery, and most people werepretty effective at getting that
done, just by driving throughsome of these neighborhoods and
seeing the amount of drywallcabinets and soft woods that
were sitting on the curb and,again, thankful to FEMA, they've

(15:10):
been on top of it, coming byand picking this stuff up very
quickly, but getting thatinitial dryout process done to a
flooded home is criticallyimportant.
We need to get that done in thefirst couple of days in order
to ensure that we don't havemore extensive mold growth or
bacteria in the house thanprobably we want to deal with.

Peter Murphy (15:32):
And then we've discovered, of course, as you
mentioned earlier, that thepermitting processes are pretty
wildly different in every place,and what I've seen is that
folks have not allowed that toreally interrupt their initial
storm recovery efforts.
They've had to do much of thiswork on their own, they've had
to hustle to get theirproperties cleaned out and dried

(15:52):
out as soon as possible, and,you know, in some cases they've
been pushing through as fast asthey can to get their homes
recovered and restored.
And well, so have we seenproblems related to that.

Chase Clark (16:06):
Yeah, you know, I don't know about enforcement
right now.
As far as those that arechoosing to go it alone versus
go through the process ofpermitting, there's warnings
everywhere about it.
You need to get a permit.
In certain areas you can do upto two feet of drywall repair
without a permit, and someplaces you've got to get a
permit no matter what foreverything that you're going to

(16:28):
do, lining up contractors andgetting those permits pulled.
The municipalities havepromised to expedite the permit
pull process.
Some have even waived fees forpeople with storm damage, but I
think the bottleneck right nowthat I see happening is that so
many people are going after thesame vendors and their time and

(16:49):
resource constraint, and so someof them are being told that
they can't even start theirprojects for two to three months
.
You layer on top of thatpotential supply chain issues.
You can only imagine the demandthat's being put right now on
two by fours and drywall andcabinets and countertops and
things like that.
Home Depot and Lowe's have beenvery busy.

(17:12):
I'm sure their stock price isgoing to show that this quarter,
at least for this area, it'sbeen a really good thing for
them.
But I think long term, I thinkthe process is taking longer and
probably going to cost morethan people expect, and so
that's why, when you get yourinitial offer from your
insurance company, it's criticalthat you match that up with

(17:36):
what your vendor or what yourcontractor is saying that they
will contract to do your job foryour complete restoration,
because you don't want to accepta number from the insurance
company and then be left holdingthe bag two, three months later
because they didn't send youenough money and now your
contractor has overages or thecost of materials has gone up

(17:57):
and he's making you or she'smaking you eat that cost.
So it's a fine balance and it'skind of a game you have to play
with your insurance right nowas to how much money they're
going to give you and what it'sactually going to cost you at
the end of this to have yourhouse restored.

Peter Murphy (18:14):
Right.
It's a big possible gap inthose two pieces of information
and fortunately, if you've got agood insurance agent, someone
advises you in this.
They're giving you thatinformation.
You may want to push backstrong because of the likely
reality that costs in both laborand materials are going to go
way up from wherever it is thatyou thought you're going to be
paying for the job.
So lots of interesting movingparts there for those of us who

(18:38):
are caught up in that.
And boy, we are caught up in alot of it.
We've heard about a lot ofstories already of people in
certain housing markets,certainly down in St Pete and
communities like Shore Acres,which are badly flooded in many
of the parts of town thatreceive substantial flooding in
the interior of people's homes.

(18:59):
We're hearing stories all thetime of folks who are just
walking away right, and thoseare making the news.
They're splashy stories rightnow.
What kind of impact are wepredicting this is going to have
on the housing market?
Are we seeing a lot of dealslike this hit the market, where
people are just walking away andselling for cash just to leave,
or is this reality a littleoverspun right now?

Chase Clark (19:24):
Well, I don't know that.
We have any specific raw datayet.
It may be too soon to see howmany people actually up and
leave.
Like you mentioned, you canwatch the news every night and
there's always one or two peopleon the news that are like oh,
I'm out of here, I'm done, right, and I'll tell you what, if I
lived in Shore Acres, I'd bedone too.
I mean, those people haveflooded every year for the past
three years, so they're eitherlooking at this as hey, we're

(19:48):
very seasoned in dealing withthis process, or this is the
worst place ever to live and wegot to go.
Now.
You've got some issues withthat, though.
Right, you got people trying tosell houses that have been
gutted, you know, and so you gotto have a special kind of buyer
for that.
That's not going to qualify fortraditional financing.
You got to have an investorthat can come in and pay cash

(20:08):
for a house like that to justwalk away now and sell it as is.
It's in a situation where itprobably can't be financed and
it's going to require a cashinvestor coming in to swoop it

(20:29):
up, and that's going to demand avery good low price.

Peter Murphy (20:31):
It was a tale of two construction standards to
some degree, and what we saw inthese flood prone areas I mean
properties that have been builtover the last 20 years, that
have been built over the last 20years, that have been built
with the right kind of elevationabove the floodplain generally
fared quite well.
They didn't have living areason the lower level, they had
garages or decks, and althoughthose garages might've gotten

(20:51):
some water in them and theirpools got full of sand, the home
itself is habitable and is wellon its way to restoration and
rehabilitation at this point.
But then you've got the olderhomes that were built right at
that, right at grade, withoutthe kind of elevation that would
have kept them free from thatstorm surge.
And those are the homes where Ithink we're going to have

(21:11):
sellers who really need to dosome soul searching on what the
future of that product is forthem.
You know you can rebuild itjust as it it is if not more
than 50% of it has been damaged,and that's a very important if
right An adjuster who determinesthat more than 50% of a home
has been damaged, that owner isthen obliged to raise that home
to current constructionstandards, and so we could see

(21:34):
some considerable costsassociated with that reality.
But let's say that a personhasn't received that kind of a
death sentence for their home.
They still have to considerwhether or not, just a few years
from now, they're going to befaced with this exact same
scenario all over again.
And so how often is too oftenfor you to have to start from
scratch with your home?
Is it once every 10 years, whena flood comes through and you

(21:56):
got to gut it and rebuild it?
Is that too much for you?
Or how?
About once every 20 years?
I don't know.
For me, that number is a reallylow number.
I don't want to have to do thatvery much in my lifetime.
So I wonder what people aregoing to do who are faced with
now the reality that their homeis flooded out.
It could happen again becauseI'm not rebuilding it.
Now what am I going to do aboutmy home?

(22:17):
How am I going to keep it?
I'm going to try and sell itand get out from under the
potential loss of this.

Chase Clark (22:26):
It's a tough question, I think, that
homeowners are having to grapplewith right now.
Yeah, and I think, at the endof the day, it comes down to
location.
Right, People are still livingon the beach, People are still
living in older homes on thebeach.
People are not shying away fromthese areas that they know have
a high propensity for floodinglike this and the ones that did
actually flood in both storms.
Talk about areas in Tampa likeDavis Island and Beach Park.

(22:47):
Even Shore Acres is a highlydesirable location in Pinellas
County, and so these homeownersare making the decision okay,
well, do I walk away?
Do I move to high ground?
What do I do?
And quite often, if you're inthe right location, there are
developers that want your dirt,and so they're more than happy
to come in and scrape your houseoff the ground, maybe even buy

(23:09):
two or three lots together atthe same time and build a nice
multimillion dollar home in oneof these highly desirable areas.
I mean, when you're talkingabout Davis Island, you've seen
this for the last severaldecades, this process of tearing
down the old and building thenew.
And, anecdotally, I've beentold that most of the new stuff
on Davis Island didn't reallyflood, but the old stuff was

(23:31):
completely underwater.
Same thing down in Beach Park.
You've got very nice olderhomes down there that are now
being checkerboarded inside ofthese multimillion dollar
multi-story homes, and I thinkyou know that.
That if you want to call itgentrification, I don't know and
these, some of theseneighborhoods are so nice it's

(23:52):
hard to think about themgentrifying further, but I mean
that will be the next layer ornext step that we see in some of
these really desirablelocations.

Peter Murphy (24:03):
Yeah, I think it's highly likely that anything
that flooded out, especially inthese highly desirable
communities, those owners who dosell new construction, will
come in and we're going to see amajor increase in the value and
the overall value of thesehousing markets when they're
rebuilt with construction thatcan withstand 8 and 10 foot

(24:25):
storm surges, which, if this isa 200 year storm, the storm
surge that we experienced fromHurricane Helene was probably in
the six to eight foot heightzone and that could be as
substantial as we see it for thewell, for the many of our
lifetimes.

(24:45):
And so it's possible that we'veexperienced some of the worst
that could have been thrown atus over these last few years.
Granted, it didn't come up inthe mouth of Tampa Bay and we
get that right, so that could beworse, but we saw a pretty bad
storm and well, most of us didreally well and certainly most
homes that were built in modernconstruction standards did
really well.
And that's saying something forthe Florida building code,

(25:07):
because we've put a lot ofenergy and effort into that.
We've rewritten it insubstantial and almost total
after Hurricane Andrew almost 30years ago and now we've got a
code that really withstood quitewell to the ravages of the
storm and of the flood, and soyou know, kudos to the planners
for doing quite well with someof that.

Chase Clark (25:28):
Yeah, I think from a wind standpoint that's true.
Right, most of the buildingcode was rewritten based on wind
speed.
So impact windows, impact doors, roof straps, all of those
kinds of things were updatedafter Hurricane Andrew.
Concrete block with reinforcedrebar and concrete things like
that.
All of that stuff is windrelated.

(25:50):
The thing I think that is goingto come out of this these two
storms together is some revisionto where the floodplains are
and how, and maybe areassessment of how we handle
stormwater.
We looked around the city ofTampa, hillsborough County, both
public and private retentionareas, and the number of pumps

(26:11):
that are required to keep thewater flowing and the number of
pump failures that occurred atcritical times during these
storms that caused some homes toflood out that have never
flooded before or that shouldn'thave flooded, because there
were these mitigating systems inplace.
Yet the systems failed, and sohow do we handle stormwater

(26:33):
going forward?
How do we handle 12 inches ofrain in a three or four hour
period?
You know how do we handle thisin the midst of an area that's
continually growing, withincreased development going on
all the time, people buildingthings on top of areas where
water used to go, and theengineers say we're accounting

(26:54):
for this.
Swift Mud says they'rerequiring planning for this and
all the new development going onto get a permit to build
anything.
But I think what we saw in thisstorm is either a failure in
the assessment, the failure inplanning or the failure in the
execution of actually requiringdevelopers to do what the
engineers thought they weregoing to do.

(27:15):
And then, secondary to that,we've got failure of government
in some of these areas just tomonitor and maintain their
pumping stations that arerequired to be able to live in
an area like this, very close tosea level, and especially at a
time when we're going to getstorms that dump that much rain
and water on our surface in avery short period of time.

Peter Murphy (27:36):
Chase, while you've been talking, I've been
thinking about how many newerhome construction communities
flooded during this storm, and Idon't have clear data on this,
so it's going to be a little bitof a guess, but I can't think
of any right.
What I think of are there aresome older communities located
near new communities thatflooded horribly, as though the

(27:59):
impact from that developmentflooded out the old stuff right.
Or the old communities thathave retention ponds that also
have pumps on them because, overthe course of time.
Or the old communities thathave retention ponds that also
have pumps on them because, overthe course of time, they've
realized that that retentionstructure is inadequate and they
need to pump out some waterinto some of the other city or
other retention areas around it.
That failed with a highincidence.

(28:21):
But did we see, do you have anyrecollection of newer
construction communities thatalso flooded?

Conor Kincaid (28:30):
Well, I live in a smaller community here, but
it's brand new.
It was just developed inpotentially late 2023, 2024.
And we had almost no damage.
We had some wind damage withsome fencing we still haven't
with some fencing.
We still haven't got thefencing repaired yet in the
neighborhood.
But directly across the roadwas an older neighborhood and

(28:55):
just down the road, anotherneighborhood that was almost
completely devastated withflooding, and a lot of those had
to do with, like you've beentalking about, those retention
ponds.

Chase Clark (29:13):
And so that's definitely an area of interest.
Yeah, I think in all thestories I've seen covered on the
news there's only one communitythat I'm aware of, and I
believe it's down in the SouthHillsborough County near Waimama
, that did have some floodingdue to, I believe the community
was still under construction, sothey failed to unblock some of
the stormwater drains prior tothe storm and had some minor
flooding there.
And then you've got a community, I believe down in the Lakewood

(29:36):
Ranch area in Bradenton that isa newer community built in the
last two or three years, thatdid have some flooding and I
think that was related to a pumpissue with their retention
system.
But by and large, like Connorsaid, like you mentioned, it is
the older communities that arebearing the brunt of the new
development impacts tostormwater.

Peter Murphy (30:00):
Well, that's really unfortunate, I mean
because I don't think we'reprobably accounting for that
cost at all in the constructionprocess.
If new construction is comingthrough and it's increasing the
likelihood that some of ourolder communities are going to
flood out because of how they'rebuilt out, then well, that's
something that most certainlyought to come out in the review
process of these storms, becausethat's certainly a cost that

(30:23):
the owners in those oldcommunities are not going to be
able to bear when they findthemselves flooded out because
of whatever industrial warehousewas put up beside them with
inadequate drainage.
So it'll be interesting to seewhere all that trends and what
legislations emerge.
So far it's pretty quiet, right.
So it's only been a month sincethe storm and I think people
are afraid to add insult toinjury, but the rumblings of

(30:45):
that are quiet for now.
People are still scrambling hardto rebuild and there's a lot of
the stories that we've heardabout.
You know what has gone on withthat.
We're still pulling trees offof houses, we're still finding
people who have been stayingwith friends for three and four
weeks now and they're finallynow getting themselves into some

(31:10):
long-term temporary butlong-term living arrangements
because they've got a long roadahead of them to rebuild their
homes, and the owners of theseproperties, if they're rentals,
have got a lot of work to dobefore their homes can be
re-rented again.
We've got short-term rentalcommunities on the beaches which
are still several months outfrom being able to open up again
because their pools are stilldamaged and the restaurants up
and down the streets are stillclosed.
We've got stories of long termrestaurants that were popular

(31:32):
and highly desirable and they'veclosed now because of lack of
business and will not reopen.
So the total cost, both likedollar wise and psychologically,
of these kind of events justcan't be understated.
It's a huge and destructiveevent and something worth pause
and reflecting about, for sure.

Chase Clark (31:50):
Yeah, it sure is.
There's been a coupleincredible things too that we've
seen during this storm.
You brought one up a littlewhile ago about neighbors
stepping in to help neighborsand friends helping friends, and
you know, in this area, thebroader Christian community
stepping in to help otherChristians, and that's been one

(32:12):
of the most positive andimpactful things we've seen in a
storm like this.
And you know we see thesestories all the time.
You know, no matter where thedevastation comes, throughout
the country people step up,people step in to help bridge
the gap and you know it's.
It's really encouraging to seethat because when you're going
through something like this, youknow most of the time the

(32:33):
burden feels like it's all onyou.
You're waiting for an insurancepayout, you're waiting for this
, you're waiting for that.
You've got to clean up youryard, you've got to handle this
problem, that problem, and justhaving someone else or a small
group of people come to justpick up the limbs in your yard,
to help you, chainsaw throughyour driveway to pressure wash,

(32:54):
you know your garage out that'sbeen flooded or something like
that, really softens the blowfor a lot of this stuff and
works to build community andhopefully what we'll see in the
end is yeah, there's beeneconomic impact that's been
devastating to this area whetherit's restaurant closures,

(33:14):
business closures, short-termrental, shutdowns temporarily
and things like that buthopefully the end result of all
of this is a stronger communitybecause of what we've done to
help each other get through thisstorm.

Peter Murphy (33:31):
Yeah, we do always seem to come back stronger, the
communities that are affectedby tragedies like this, and so
we're hoping for that as well,and we're hoping for a quiet end
of the hurricane season.
As we speak, hurricane Rafaelis turning in the Caribbean.
It's just blitzed Cuba and shutdown that poor country again,
closed down all power in thatcountry, but its trajectory

(33:54):
appears to have changed and it'sheading now away from the US
mainland back toward the YucatanPeninsula.
So prayers are with the guysdown in Mexico as they deal with
that head-on collision andhopefully that will be the last
of it for the 2024 hurricaneseason, which will definitely be
a storm that will go down inthe history books.

Chase Clark (34:12):
Yeah, no doubt we can all thank Raphael for
stealing our fall weather too,giving us 90 degrees with 100%
humidity and making it feelreally swampy here for the
middle of November in CentralFlorida.

Peter Murphy (34:25):
Yes, Many thanks to it.
Right and Connor, thanks to youfor your hard work through the
storm and for keeping tabs inthe insurance industry for us.

Conor Kincaid (34:34):
Yeah, it's been good discussing these issues
with you guys, yep, and we'll beback soon.

Peter Murphy (34:39):
We've a lot to talk about.
New opportunities will emerge,new chances to help and to serve
, new chances to make money inreal estate.
These sorts of things alwaystend to be somewhat Phoenix
events for us, and you know, youcome back out of the ashes with
great new opportunities.
So until next time we'll behopefully prepared to talk about
some of those.
It's a it's bye for now for me.

Chase Clark (34:59):
Yeah, stay tuned when maybe we hit up what the
election impact is going to beon real estate here in the next
couple of weeks.