October 8, 2024 • 31 mins
What if a flood could put everything you own in jeopardy? On this episode of the Carolina Contractor Show, Eric Smith and general contractor Donnie Blanchard tackle the pressing issue of flood preparedness and insurance coverage, especially in the wake of Hurricane Helene's devastation in North Carolina. Drawing from personal experiences in hard-hit areas like Little Switzerland and Boone, we bring you vivid accounts of navigating blocked roads and prolonged power outages. Donnie shares his unique perspective as a former insurance adjuster during Hurricane Katrina, revealing the often misunderstood intricacies of flood insurance. You’ll learn essential strategies for protecting your home, including the use of high-capacity generators and how you can support recovery efforts through groups like Samaritan's Purse.
Our discussion doesn’t stop there; we equip you with practical strategies tailored for properties that are vulnerable to water runoff. Discover the importance of proper drainage systems and innovative solutions, such as water-activated flood bags and the DoorDam, to shield your home from potential damage. We stress the importance of disaster preparedness essentials, from maintaining a water supply and emergency kits to safeguarding critical documents. Our reflections on past disasters highlight the crucial roles of communication and planning, offering you the tools to stay safe in emergencies. Tune in for invaluable advice that could be the difference in how you face severe weather challenges.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Carolina Contractor Show with
your host, general ContractorDonnie Blanchard.
And, yeah, welcome to anotheredition of the Carolina
Contractor Show.
My name is Eric Smith, acrossfrom me, general Contractor
Donnie Blanchard, and usuallythis time of the show we've been
starting it off because offootball season, talking about
(00:20):
scores and teams and stuff likethat.
But that kind of takes abackseat to everything with what
we had occurring with HurricaneHelene and we're not going to
go over the destruction.
It's pretty obvious, probablythe most devastating thing
that's ever happened to thestate of North Carolina.
I've been here my whole life.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
You pretty much too, donnie, you'd agree right, I
would say the exact same thingand my daughters actually took
notice.
And when you have teenagerssaying Dad, that's really bad,
you know it's definitely worsethan people realize and I told
them.
Not since those areas have beencolonized have they had
something like this.
So when people started to movethere and form towns, I read
back where, I think in 1920something they had similar
(01:03):
flooding, but it didn't touchthis one.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
My sister lives in little Switzerland which is just
a little north of Asheville.
Her house, pretty much, is fine.
They had some damage on theA-frame at the top from trees
falling over and they have nopower.
She said it was the scariestthing she's ever experienced.
But below her there's a lodgeor a hotel and they've got like
300 people stranded there.
(01:25):
The roads are impassable andshe even said when she contacted
me she said we plan to be uphere for weeks before we can get
out or get power becausethey're not super isolated.
But there's just so much, muchdamage and you have familiarity
because you're an App State guyright.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah, but I think App State sits high enough on the
hill that they are okay.
I've talked to several peoplein Boone this past week and I
think that the passage from 321south of Blowing Rock is all
blocked off so you can't come inthat way but you can still
access Boone by 421.
So you know, head throughWinston-Salem and the people
coming up from Charlotte.
I want to say the 77 access,highway 77 access is back open.
(02:12):
So they did say that they areshuttling generators into Lowe's
and I got the same questionfrom everybody what size do I
buy?
I said the biggest one they got,because you know a generator is
going to take two people toload it up and you want to go
ahead and get the one with thehighest capacity that they have
available.
Because I said it's going to bemusical drop cords.
You're going to be figuring outif nobody's wired with a
transfer switch up there.
I mean, I'm sure there arepeople that were more prepared,
(02:34):
but most of the houses don'thave the external plug that you
can hook the generator to andthen flip the transfer switch in
their breaker panel box andbasically do this a safe way.
So they're going to be relianton drop cords to each appliance
that they need.
And I said it's going to be asituation where you may not have
hot water but you can keep yourfreezer, your fridge and
whatever survived the last threeor four days going.
(02:57):
But yeah, boone didn't get itnearly as bad as everybody else.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
We've talked about generators many times and people
can go look up those if theywant to go more in depth of what
type of generator oralternative methods that you can
use.
The website's a place to startthecarolinacontractorcom.
We've also got YouTube channelsup Facebook, instagram.
We've got podcasts.
By the way, speaking ofpodcasts, the Carolina
Contractor has like 200 plusepisodes and you can find them,
(03:24):
like on Apple.
We have a five star rating.
Also want to thank all ourlisteners who take the time just
to even just click the stars,let alone the ones that go and
leave a review for the show.
But we've got them listed bytopic.
So if you want to look atsomething that might be, we've
done shows multiple shows onpreparing for a hurricane and
what to do after a hurricane.
(03:45):
We've done shows multiple showson preparing for a hurricane
and what to do after a hurricane, and we've touched on flooding,
but we've really not gone intodepth of flooding.
So we're going to do that today.
That's the topic We'll betalking about flooding.
If you want to help people inWestern North Carolina, I
suggest making a donation toSamaritansPurseorg.
They're always first on theground.
I think Franklin Graham, billyGraham's son, who's the head of
(04:07):
the Samaritans Purse.
I think he and Trump were onthe ground helping out Saturday,
and the show isn't about, again, politics, it's just also.
Donnie, I'm going to let youtalk about this as we go through
the show.
You have a lot of experiencedealing with flooding because
you were an adjuster for theinsurance industry when Katrina
(04:29):
hit way back in the day.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yep, 20 plus years ago I was a baby-faced kid going
into New Orleans and reallyhadn't been outside of North
Carolina a lot at that point.
So I went to Alabama andstarted and went to Dallas to
train as a brand new adjusterand then got sent right in the
thick of things in New Orleans.
But to comment on what you said, I think the difference in
(04:52):
today's show in terms ofhurricane preparedness versus
what we normally talk about wetailor everything around.
If you live from the coast toours inland, and this is
something that we've never seenbefore and, like you mentioned,
the flooding is the bigdifference here.
And with a flood policy, peopleoften get confused that your
(05:13):
homeowner's insurance coversflood.
It covers everything, and inNew Orleans that was probably
the best example I've ever seenof that not being true at all.
New Orleans is in a bowl that'show people describe it, so they
are in a flood prone area andmore people had flood insurance
there than probably anywhereelse in the country, so they
were more prepared by leaps andbounds compared to the western
part of North Carolina, whereyou know you're on, you're on a
(05:35):
hill, you're not supposed to geta flood.
I mean, water is not supposedto get that high and we'll get
into the reasons why in a bit.
The reasons why in a bit.
But a flood policy maxes out at250,000.
And the way that they figurethat is that the chances of a
flood being eight to 10 feet andall that are really unlikely.
I know some areas that were lowlining and the foothills did
(05:56):
get that much water but theyfigured that 250,000 maximum
policy is enough to put togetherthe bottom four feet of your
house and that should be enough.
But during Katrina we maxed outa $200,000, maybe $400,000 or
$250,000 flood policies a day.
And that was just me as oneadjuster.
My company had 400 people downthere and we were all doing that
.
The big difference between thatand the mountains is that
(06:18):
nobody was properly insured.
So these people, it makes nosense to have a flood policy if
you are, if you're at such ahigh elevation and you know the
reason behind some of thesefloods were, you know all the
rivers overflowing and they justgot an insane amount of water
and basically the structuresprobably aren't as well
(06:39):
maintained in the western partof the state as they are and
more highly traveled areas likethe middle, middle third of the
state, we get a lot of commercefrom business to more people
living here.
It's just more dense and theytake care of the infrastructure
a lot better.
So it was the perfect storm, nopun intended, and a lot of
people were underinsured, youknow.
To go back to the flood policy,the difference between the flood
(07:01):
, between being covered by aflood policy or homeowner's
insurance, is surface water, andI could go into a deep dive on
that.
But a flood is exactly whathappened.
You have a river overflowingand you can't handle the volume,
so that spills over into areaswhere a lot of residential
housing, things like that andsurface water is.
If we get a very heavy rain formaybe two or three days, we're
(07:24):
in the dry part of the summer.
The ground can't absorb thatwater and that surface water
spills into the house.
That does not count as a flood,so that would be covered under
your homeowner's insurance.
Side note, we don't have a lotof basements in North Carolina
like they do up north, but forpeople who do have basements,
they often have something with asewer backup.
Because you have a bathroom inyour basement, you know that has
(07:45):
a connection to your sewer lineand sewer backup has a specific
endorsement on your insurancepolicy.
So you you have to ask youragent, hey, or have to tell him,
hey, I have a bathroom in mybasement and it is prone If we
get a flood.
You know I'm going to have aproblem with sewer backup.
But insurance is tricky and thefact that you have to have a
specific endorsement for thesewer backup, you have to have a
(08:05):
separate flood policy andthat's different than your
homeowner's insurance.
All that is just a lot to takein for the average homeowner.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
And the average home insurer will be able to offer
you flood insurance.
The average cost in NorthCarolina is about $840 a year.
Now some policies, the premiumsare $4,000 or more a year, and
there's obvious reasons.
If you live at the coast,you're going to pay a lot for
flood insurance because you havea higher likelihood of it.
But again, as you pointed out,a lot of places in the mountains
(08:31):
don't have it because theydon't really think about getting
a flood or the things thathappen that are the result of
the flood.
And $250,000 is not a lot ofmoney and, as a matter of fact,
for a lot of the houses that wesaw in Western North Carolina
and in Florida, say in Georgia,that were completely destroyed
or they're going to have to betorn down, that money is not
going to cover anything.
(08:52):
You're going to rebuild halfthe house, so it's better than
nothing.
But I completely can understandwhy someone in the mountains is
thinking well, I don't needflood insurance because this
literally is a one in everythousand year type event.
Ask your insurance agency am Icovered for a flood?
What's an act of God, Thingslike that?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah, when you read up on that surface water versus
flood water definition, I meanit sounds gray.
I know what I'm reading andI've seen it all go down and it
still sounds kind of gray.
I mean it sounds like they'llsay that you know, flood water
can be caused by heavy rains.
But then surface water iscaused by heavy rains and I'm
thinking to myself.
Really the coverage comes downto the discernment of the
(09:34):
insurance company.
So if you have a good insurancecompany, maybe they say you
know what?
You got six inches of water,we're going to call that surface
.
But if you got four feet, eightfeet, you know those are the
definite floods.
And I think the way that theywill make that delineation is if
it was a one day event or if itwas a four day event.
If you were underwater forthree or four days, that's a
flood all day long.
You know, if you had water inyour house and it maybe got into
(09:56):
your garage and your baseboardgot messed up, then they write
that off as surface water.
But it'll be interesting to seehow this all plays out.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Hey Donnie, what about water tables?
We have that in my neck of thewoods in Wilson, north Carolina.
The water literally rises up.
So I have a crawl space andwhen we get a lot of rain, or it
rains for several days, ortropical storm, I can open up my
little crawl space and look andI can see it be damp.
What if that water table risesup higher?
In other words, there's notwater necessarily draining into
(10:25):
your property or into your house, but the ground is so saturated
and you're so close to a watertable it literally seeps out of
the ground and starts coming up.
Is that flood?
Speaker 2 (10:37):
No, I would consider that surface water, so that
would probably be covered underhomeowner's insurance.
To be honest, I've never askedthat question specifically to an
agent.
I would say that you know that,having that vapor barrier I
think you mentioned you had thatput in your crawl space because
with no light and difference intemperature in a crawl space
it's notorious for being moistanyway and damp, and so that
(10:59):
vapor barrier is probably yoursaving grace right there.
I know you're further east thanI am and a water table there is
different than where I live,but I would say that if it did
cause a problem where you hadstanding water in there and it
did come from the ground, thatsounds like surface water.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Real quick.
Last things on flood insuranceyou get it.
You can't see a hurricanecoming and call them and say put
it in effect.
It's probably going to take amonth before it's going to be
active.
You can look at the FEMAwebsite.
They've got a program I've gotit right here called the NFIP.
It's the National FloodInsurance Program.
You can research that.
(11:33):
They know where the floodplainsare.
You can find out by a link.
If you're living in afloodplain, there's lots of
resources there.
So if you have suffered fromflooding or you just want to
know, should I get floodinsurance, fema is actually
probably a good place to startto get information on what you
want to do.
What we want to focus on therest of the show, though, is
things that you can do toprepare for a flood, what to do
(11:56):
if you have it.
So let's talk about some of thethings we can do to prepare for
minimum flooding.
Tropical storms are prettynormal.
What are some things ahomeowner can do to minimize it
if there is an excessive amountof rain that the streets and the
sewers and whatnot can't holdit?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
I think that just having a good evaluation of
where you stand and the heightof your house in relation to the
street the closest street ormaybe the neighbor probably the
most important part of thatevaluation.
Because, you know, during aheavy rain and I figured that
this out with my personal houseI had a couple of downspouts
dropped from the second floordown onto my porch roof and they
overflowed.
So the way I had to solve thatproblem is I had to get in a
(12:36):
rain suit, basically, and go outin the pouring rain on the roof
and figure out what was movingwhere and why that overflow was
was happening.
And, um, you know, it's justnot, it's not comfortable to
think about going out in thepouring rain, especially when
it's a gully washer, and seeingwhat's going on.
But I think it's after we seewhat just happened, in a worst
case scenario, it will serve youwell to get an idea.
(12:59):
If you are the downhill housefrom the street or the downhill
house from your neighbor, you'regetting all that runoff from
from their lot, and so when youthink of the thousands of
gallons of volume that ispassing across your lot or
through your lot, and if we hada situation where we got this
hurricane that thank God it wasmoving kind of fast or it would
have been even worse.
(13:19):
But, heaven forbid, we havesomething sit right on top of us
, moving five, 10 miles an hourso it takes forever to get out
of here.
That runoff is everything, andso all that's going to be
directed towards your house,your garage or what have you.
The way to fix that, or the wayto remedy that, is to have the
proper drainage system in placeand have positive drainage away
(13:39):
from your house.
Just with the grading alone,I'd say, is a single most
important thing to consider whenwe build a new house.
The code is you have to have 10foot of positive drainage in
every direction away from thathouse.
So that means you have to havea fall on the dirt landscaping
everything from your house 10foot away.
And if any water gets down byyour house, you know it either
(14:00):
goes around your house becauseof that elevated dirt right up
against the house or it just itfinds another way besides in
your house.
And so the drainage having alandscaping contractor come out
if you're not great in this area, having somebody come out and
say, hey, you know, take a lookat my house.
What do you recommend I do?
Do I need to add more?
Do I bring a couple loads ofdirt in here?
(14:20):
Do we need to build up thisarea?
And you know from the street, ifyou're downhill from the street
, that you get all that runofffrom the street.
There's no grass or anything toabsorb that.
So all that's coming to you andI've seen some terrible
neighbor situations where thehigher elevated neighbor was
just given the lower neighborthe business.
And it's not the neighbor'sfault, but it's just the fact
that you didn't make the rightaccommodations back when you had
(14:43):
a chance to get the gradingright.
But I think that it's worth itto get all that in place, have
your place evaluated by somebodywho knows what they're doing.
A landscaping contractor is agood place to start and I have a
couple of guys who I reallytrust.
So message us through thewebsite if you'd like a
recommendation or referral.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
So up on my little IG feed came this thing from Shark
Tank water acted flood bags.
You think of sandbags whenthere's a flood.
People are holding them up andthey're filling them up and they
set them up, but these thingsare flat and I mean like maybe a
half inch, but the sand orsilica or whatever is in it,
which is like a half a cupswells 300 times its size, each
(15:26):
little piece.
And when it gets wet itautomatically becomes a sandbag.
And then I read you can let itdry out in the sun and it'll go
back down and it can be reusedtwo, three, four times.
But what a great thing to havearound your house where you
could set it in place and ifwater comes up to it it's going
to automatically sandbag it.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Yeah, and even better than that, they're available.
I looked those up on Amazon.
There are a hundred differentsites that have those on Amazon
and they were available forovernight delivery.
Even so, you know, storm comingin tomorrow, as long as trucks
are running, or storm coming ina couple of days, you can get
next day delivery.
On those things and the factthat they are fairly cheap, I
want to say eight bags were like$130.
(16:07):
And you really only need thosebags around the penetrations,
like basically the exteriordoors on the low side of your
house.
And they had an alternative onAmazon called DoorDam and they
were anywhere from $600 to $800.
And the more I looked at thatthing I thought I can build that
and I may be wrong.
But with the Door dam it's alittle bit more to it.
(16:30):
But basically it's just a sealthat fits in between the jams on
an exterior door and it sealsthe bottom and the sides up to
about three feet.
And I can't justify paying $800for that.
But I could go to Lowe's andprobably for less than $100, I
could build a door dam.
So if you're handy, that may bean option.
And the other thing, this ishard as the owner of a roofing
(16:52):
company, we don't like Flex Seal.
When the commercial comes on, Ichange the channel because I
kind of always felt like FlexSeal was a novelty.
It's basically like silicone ina spray can and it will
temporarily stop a leak.
I'll give them that.
But when I looked on Amazon forthe water activated flood bags,
(17:12):
the very top line was a totalproduct line of flood prevention
from FlexSeal.
And what I just said is themost important thing is that
it's a temporary thing, so youdon't need this to be in place
for months like you would on aroof.
But with the FlexSeal theybasically have a caulk, a
specific caulk that goes in allthe cracks.
So around the door, under thethreshold, you would caulk all
(17:35):
those areas and then you eitherput a tape or a spray on there
and the best thing about it isit's removable and it doesn't
leave any residue.
So I can totally, if it's thator water in your house, I can
give Flex Seal my firstendorsement ever.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
As you would say, being a former insurance
adjuster, if you show that youtried to mitigate damage,
whether you use Flex Seal orpillows or piled up washcloths,
anything that shows that you tryto mitigate damage is going to
make an insurance adjuster happyand more likely to help get
that payout be higher.
So, whatever you can use, yep,good point.
I want to jump through a coupleof things, and this is what to
do in anticipation of a flood.
(18:13):
Again, we're not coming on theback of the floods in Western
North Carolina and go, hey, youshould have done this, but a
flood can happen anywhere at anytime.
So there's some things you cando in advance.
I think probably the biggestthing is document, document,
document, because whether it's aflood or a fire or something,
when you go through the processof getting insurance money to
(18:33):
pay for what you've lost, theywant documentation.
They want to know not that youhad clothes, they want to know
what clothes you lost.
They want to know what TV youhad.
They want to be great.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Well, imagine plugging in item for item into a
spreadsheet.
That's not so great, that'svery tedious, but if the
homeowner came to me with thespreadsheet, yeah, we're good,
we're great.
Thank you so much.
I can copy and paste that.
But the contents documentationis everything to the tune of
(19:16):
$100,000.
I mean, if you don't documentit, you're shorting yourself as
much as $100,000.
And what I tell people all thetime, walk through the house,
take a video of your furnitureand you don't have to take
individual pictures.
You can do a video and doscreenshots from the video, but
just anything showing that, hey,I really did have this.
If you have really expensivethings, like you know on my Best
(19:37):
Buy account when I buy a TV,that I have records for 10 years
back on all of my electronicsand I can just log into my Best
Buy account and pull thereceipts up.
So that's pretty black andwhite.
But with furniture, especiallyif you have designer furniture,
furniture touches the floor andif the house leaks it's going to
(19:58):
be on the floor.
The bottom of that furniture isprobably going to be ruined.
And if you paid more than roomsto go prices for things, you
probably want to document all ofyour receipts for the furniture
and jewelry is another bigthing.
Take pictures of your receiptsfor the furniture and jewelry is
another big thing.
You know.
Take pictures of your jewelryand it's not like you have to
share that, just have thatstored in case this comes up and
not the jewelry would getruined in a flood, but maybe if
(20:19):
the water was high enough.
And I know for a fact that theyhave free contents,
spreadsheets and basicallypaperwork that you can get right
there on the internet and youcan download that, print it off
and plug those in yourself.
If you have a day or two toprepare and you're at home and
you're not working, then that isprobably the best investment of
(20:40):
your time that I could think of.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
And you know what.
Maybe using a thumb drive was abad example.
I've showed my age.
But one thing you're rightabout everything's on the cloud
Receipts.
You can take a video of yourbelongings, you can take
pictures of certain items, youcan take pictures of contracts
and stuff or make copies of themand upload them, because, no
matter where you are, you canaccess that information anytime.
(21:05):
You don't have to say, well,it's all at my house.
You could be at an office oranother building, or you had to
have temporary housing and go.
I can get you any informationyou need about my house.
I have it all in this file thatI uploaded to the cloud.
Here it is on my phone or popopen a laptop.
You don't have to physicallyhave that information anymore,
so that's a great advantage.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Yeah, and I think one thing that I would add to that
and if folks are taking a listhere, of course you know
inventory all your contents.
And that leads me to the pointof you want to know how much
contents coverage you have.
And your house is coverage A,your outbuildings, any kind of
other structure, detached garage, that'd be coverage B, and so
(21:48):
if you have $500,000 worth ofcoverage A, you automatically
get $50,000 of coverage B.
So your policy puts 10% on thatand that's just an insurance
thing.
But your contents is the onevariable that you have.
You can specifically ask for acertain amount of contents
coverage.
It may affect your premium, butthat's the one thing that you
do have control over.
(22:08):
And I know that we've said thison the hurricane preparation
shows.
But know your insurance policyinformation, know your policy
number, know who.
You'd be amazed at how manypeople I ask, hey, who's your
insurance company?
And they, well, I don't know.
I got to go check with my wifeor, and at least one person
knows in that scenario.
But when I was an adjuster, Iwould say that 90% of the people
(22:30):
that I visited to handle theirclaim were first-time claim
filers.
They said we've never filed aclaim before and that was a
pretty interesting stat to seein real time.
And people just don't know youpay your insurance premium or
you got it on auto draft, andhaving that information handy in
the event of an emergency is areally big deal.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
We talked about this right before we started the show
and there are survival tips youcan take advantage of if you're
stranded at home, and I said aflood survival kit is kind of
like a camping kit.
Think of all the things youwould want if you were gonna go
out camping for four or fivedays.
If you had that same kit atyour house and you were flooded
(23:10):
as in.
You couldn't get out of yourhouse, you couldn't leave your
property.
These things would get youthrough.
We know obviously you have tohead to higher ground.
If your house starts taking onwater, you could end up on the
roof or the attic we saw inWestern North Carolina.
Sometimes that's not highenough, but let's focus more on
(23:32):
your stuck at home.
What are some of the things wewant to have in our possession
that would help get us through acatastrophe like a flood?
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Yeah, that's a genius analogy, by the way, I love
that you created that to camp.
And I think the thing thatcrossed my mind is I said, well,
maybe this is a good couplesexercise.
You could sit there and giveyourself a $200 allowance on
Amazon and watch the movieCastaway, and just you know,
just bye, bye, bye.
And I'm not a prepper, but Idon't think that preppers are
thinking the wrong way, becauseyou know it could hit the fan at
(24:02):
any moment with all we havegoing on with.
You know, storms and politics.
You never, you never, know.
I think that water supply is thefirst and most important thing,
because if a flood cuts offyour water supply, whether it be
your electricity to the well orthe city water supply, you can
survive without a lot of things.
You can lose 30, 40 poundswithout food, but you can't
survive without water, and Ithink that I read the rule of
(24:24):
thumb is one gallon a day perperson.
So if you think, if youtranslate that to what's going
on in Western Carolina, man,that that's a lot of gallons of
water and, um, maybe, taking thetime when things are really
good, going well, going aheadand, you know, stocking up cases
of water, put those anywhere.
You can store those, even ifit's in the attic and I know
that people would frown on mesaying that because not supposed
(24:45):
to let those get uh, get hotbut at the same time, if it's uh
, either drink the water that'sbeen in your attic or or nothing
, then I would.
I would take that all day long.
But you know, an emergency kitis is, um, or emergency medical
kits, not a bad thing.
I did uh read where, uh, it'scommon, when you're scrambling
around after a flood event, thatif you cut yourself, that that
(25:07):
emergency kit may come into play.
Side note, there is, you know,be aware, if your tetanus shot
is updated, because a lot ofbacteria and flood water, so you
have an open wound, that'ssomething that could really burn
you and, you know, end up in aworst case scenario, kill you
Flashlights, things like that.
You know, having a pair of goodpair of rubber boots I know if
you're a city slicker, thatmight sound crazy to you, but
(25:28):
rubber boots aren't thatexpensive and go to a sporting
goods store and get you a pairof rubber boots so that if it's
six inches or a foot of floodwater, you're still okay.
You got to take care of yourfeet and ask a soldier from
Vietnam how important that is,and they'll give you the rundown
there.
But with several other thingswe talked about before we
started the show, I'll let youlead into those.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Well, I think, if you can at your house, turn off
your utilities if you can andyou know how, which is why it's
always good to know how to turnyour water off.
We've already talked aboutprotecting your documents.
Make sure you can, even if it'ssomething short notice, like in
the mountains, throw them inZiploc bags, something
waterproof, and don't set themsomewhere.
I'd advise you keep them withyou because you don't know if
(26:08):
you're going to have to run outand then you don't have that
paperwork.
But it's also important, like alot of us at our house, at the
Smith house, our rule is, if thehouse God forbid ever caught
fire, we meet at our neighbor'smailbox across the street.
Kind of the same thing with aflood.
Do you have a plan if you hadto vacate your house quickly,
(26:28):
where you would go?
Some people will paint on theirhouses that they've left A flood
.
Do you have a plan if you hadto vacate your house quickly?
Where you would go?
Some people will paint on theirhouses that they've left.
You know this from going toKatrina.
You'd see houses where it'dmark empty or something and some
people literally were paintinginsurance information on the
side of their house or they werelisting.
Call me or I'm at this or I'msafe, so be able to communicate
(26:50):
with people if they come to yourproperty to know, hey, they
actually got out there, they'reOK.
And you saw that, katrina, alot probably.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Oh yeah, more so from a video standpoint.
I don't think I personallywitnessed that, because they
wouldn't let us in there forabout three or four weeks after
the storm had passed through.
So you know, the floodwatershad subsided and basically,
people who were stranded in aworst case scenario, like on
their roof, which brings me to agood point.
You know, when I sat down toput some notes together about
the show you can read on Googleall day long about flood
(27:19):
prevention but I thought, let meput myself in their shoes and
what would I do?
And probably the scariest thingthat I saw was that people were
actually.
They were in their house, theywere riding out the flood, had
nowhere to go, and once thewater gets up to four feet,
you're thinking, okay, it'sgoing to go back down, and if it
does not, you know, your atticis the only place that you can
go to keep, to keep alive.
And I kind of thought well, theaverage person who doesn't have
(27:41):
power tools and all that, youknow how could they do this?
And it's definitely importantto have a hammer and not the one
with the curved claw on theback.
You want a straight claw and ifyou're going to do this.
You know you have to if it'slife or death.
You'll take that straight clawand you can get through the roof
from the inside.
But you got to think there'splywood that are nailed to the
rafters and you got shingles andunderlayment on top of that.
So it's pretty darn strong andit's made to keep weather out,
(28:03):
but it's also tough for you toget from the inside out, and so
you know, if you have access toa Sawzall, you're not going to
have power.
I would say an investment inbattery power tools and go
somewhere cheap like HarborFreight.
You know I hate to give them anendorsement on the show, but
Harbor Freight is good for a one, one or two shot deal and it's,
you know, having a Sawzall,having having a drill with a
(28:23):
wood bit and just being preparedwith a, that should be part of
your emergency kit, especiallyif you're in a flood prone area.
But even more so than that, youknow, fast forward to the
scenario, that you have to dothat and you have to get out on
the roof to survive.
And hopefully there arehelicopters in play, like there
were in New Orleans and inwestern North Carolina.
That's what they're doing nowand you know they're flying
(28:44):
drones and droning in supplies,and I've heard a lot of mixed
things about that, that somepeople are shutting that down
and I don't understand why, butI hadn't had time to dig into
that to have credibleinformation.
But having some solar panels onhand, that's something you can
use whether it's a flood or notand it can cut down on
electricity.
But small solar panels arecheap.
(29:05):
It's enough to charge your cellphone.
I've been hearing a lot aboutthat that people are losing cell
service and they don't have away to charge the phone.
Well, if you've got a panel,you can move all that out to the
rooftop.
While you wait on somebody tocome get you the paint example
that you mentioned, you canpaint on your roof help
something in big letters, sowhen they fly over they know
that there's somebody stillstranded there.
(29:34):
One of the things I have in mypersonal house is a crank radio.
So I have something that youcan crank a few times.
It takes 30 seconds and thenboom, you've got a powered up
radio and you have at least anincoming means of communication
from the outside world.
And that led me to my nextpoint.
I started making notes abouthow can you communicate with the
outside world.
So of course I get on Amazonand I look up the range of the
latest, greatest walkie talkies,because walkie talkie sounds
like a dinosaur word, but theyhave walkie talkies out there
(29:55):
now that will span I thinkMotorola was the manufacturer.
You hadn't heard about themsince pagers and early cell
phones.
But they have walkie talkiesfor a hundred bucks that will
span 35 miles.
So that's strong and I thinkthat that's just a very, a very
wise hundred dollars to spend.
You know, just anything thatwould charge any kind of
electronic is a good bridgebetween technology and disaster.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Yep.
Well again, if you want to helpout what's happened in North
Carolina and other parts of theSoutheast, but especially
Western North Carolina, I highlysuggest SamaritansPurseorg.
That's Franklin Graham, billyGraham's son.
It's an incredible organizationand cash is king.
That allows them to decide whatneeds to be purchased first Is
(30:36):
it gas, is it water or supplies.
So so many little things youcan do.
Prep, because a lot of peoplein Western North Carolina will
tell you right now dang 30minutes of prep could have made
a big difference for me.
So we'll put this informationup on the website Links to
Samaritan's Purse if you needthat, and ways you can help, and
(30:57):
the website again isthecarolinacontractorcom.
But be thinking and try to makea donation to help somebody in
the western part of NorthCarolina after Hurricane Halina.
Yep.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Agreed.
Eric, Thank you for all thatand take care of yourself
everybody.
That evaluation of your houseand just how you guys would
react in the event of massivedevastation like this is
everything, and it couldliterally be life-changing for
your family.
So please take care of yourself.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Well said and God bless everybody and we hope to
see you next week on theCarolina contractor show.
Thanks for listening to theCarolina contractor show.
Visit the Carolinacontractorcom.
Welcome to the Carolina Contractor Show with
your host, general ContractorDonnie Blanchard.
And, yeah, welcome to anotheredition of the Carolina
Contractor Show.
My name is Eric Smith, acrossfrom me, general Contractor
Donnie Blanchard, and usuallythis time of the show we've been
starting it off because offootball season, talking about
(00:20):
scores and teams and stuff likethat.
But that kind of takes abackseat to everything with what
we had occurring with HurricaneHelene and we're not going to
go over the destruction.
It's pretty obvious, probablythe most devastating thing
that's ever happened to thestate of North Carolina.
I've been here my whole life.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
You pretty much too, donnie, you'd agree right, I
would say the exact same thingand my daughters actually took
notice.
And when you have teenagerssaying Dad, that's really bad,
you know it's definitely worsethan people realize and I told
them.
Not since those areas have beencolonized have they had
something like this.
So when people started to movethere and form towns, I read
back where, I think in 1920something they had similar
(01:03):
flooding, but it didn't touchthis one.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
My sister lives in little Switzerland which is just
a little north of Asheville.
Her house, pretty much, is fine.
They had some damage on theA-frame at the top from trees
falling over and they have nopower.
She said it was the scariestthing she's ever experienced.
But below her there's a lodgeor a hotel and they've got like
300 people stranded there.
(01:25):
The roads are impassable andshe even said when she contacted
me she said we plan to be uphere for weeks before we can get
out or get power becausethey're not super isolated.
But there's just so much, muchdamage and you have familiarity
because you're an App State guyright.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah, but I think App State sits high enough on the
hill that they are okay.
I've talked to several peoplein Boone this past week and I
think that the passage from 321south of Blowing Rock is all
blocked off so you can't come inthat way but you can still
access Boone by 421.
So you know, head throughWinston-Salem and the people
coming up from Charlotte.
I want to say the 77 access,highway 77 access is back open.
(02:12):
So they did say that they areshuttling generators into Lowe's
and I got the same questionfrom everybody what size do I
buy?
I said the biggest one they got,because you know a generator is
going to take two people toload it up and you want to go
ahead and get the one with thehighest capacity that they have
available.
Because I said it's going to bemusical drop cords.
You're going to be figuring outif nobody's wired with a
transfer switch up there.
I mean, I'm sure there arepeople that were more prepared,
(02:34):
but most of the houses don'thave the external plug that you
can hook the generator to andthen flip the transfer switch in
their breaker panel box andbasically do this a safe way.
So they're going to be relianton drop cords to each appliance
that they need.
And I said it's going to be asituation where you may not have
hot water but you can keep yourfreezer, your fridge and
whatever survived the last threeor four days going.
(02:57):
But yeah, boone didn't get itnearly as bad as everybody else.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
We've talked about generators many times and people
can go look up those if theywant to go more in depth of what
type of generator oralternative methods that you can
use.
The website's a place to startthecarolinacontractorcom.
We've also got YouTube channelsup Facebook, instagram.
We've got podcasts.
By the way, speaking ofpodcasts, the Carolina
Contractor has like 200 plusepisodes and you can find them,
(03:24):
like on Apple.
We have a five star rating.
Also want to thank all ourlisteners who take the time just
to even just click the stars,let alone the ones that go and
leave a review for the show.
But we've got them listed bytopic.
So if you want to look atsomething that might be, we've
done shows multiple shows onpreparing for a hurricane and
what to do after a hurricane.
(03:45):
We've done shows multiple showson preparing for a hurricane
and what to do after a hurricane, and we've touched on flooding,
but we've really not gone intodepth of flooding.
So we're going to do that today.
That's the topic We'll betalking about flooding.
If you want to help people inWestern North Carolina, I
suggest making a donation toSamaritansPurseorg.
They're always first on theground.
I think Franklin Graham, billyGraham's son, who's the head of
(04:07):
the Samaritans Purse.
I think he and Trump were onthe ground helping out Saturday,
and the show isn't about, again, politics, it's just also.
Donnie, I'm going to let youtalk about this as we go through
the show.
You have a lot of experiencedealing with flooding because
you were an adjuster for theinsurance industry when Katrina
(04:29):
hit way back in the day.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yep, 20 plus years ago I was a baby-faced kid going
into New Orleans and reallyhadn't been outside of North
Carolina a lot at that point.
So I went to Alabama andstarted and went to Dallas to
train as a brand new adjusterand then got sent right in the
thick of things in New Orleans.
But to comment on what you said, I think the difference in
(04:52):
today's show in terms ofhurricane preparedness versus
what we normally talk about wetailor everything around.
If you live from the coast toours inland, and this is
something that we've never seenbefore and, like you mentioned,
the flooding is the bigdifference here.
And with a flood policy, peopleoften get confused that your
(05:13):
homeowner's insurance coversflood.
It covers everything, and inNew Orleans that was probably
the best example I've ever seenof that not being true at all.
New Orleans is in a bowl that'show people describe it, so they
are in a flood prone area andmore people had flood insurance
there than probably anywhereelse in the country, so they
were more prepared by leaps andbounds compared to the western
part of North Carolina, whereyou know you're on, you're on a
(05:35):
hill, you're not supposed to geta flood.
I mean, water is not supposedto get that high and we'll get
into the reasons why in a bit.
The reasons why in a bit.
But a flood policy maxes out at250,000.
And the way that they figurethat is that the chances of a
flood being eight to 10 feet andall that are really unlikely.
I know some areas that were lowlining and the foothills did
(05:56):
get that much water but theyfigured that 250,000 maximum
policy is enough to put togetherthe bottom four feet of your
house and that should be enough.
But during Katrina we maxed outa $200,000, maybe $400,000 or
$250,000 flood policies a day.
And that was just me as oneadjuster.
My company had 400 people downthere and we were all doing that
.
The big difference between thatand the mountains is that
(06:18):
nobody was properly insured.
So these people, it makes nosense to have a flood policy if
you are, if you're at such ahigh elevation and you know the
reason behind some of thesefloods were, you know all the
rivers overflowing and they justgot an insane amount of water
and basically the structuresprobably aren't as well
(06:39):
maintained in the western partof the state as they are and
more highly traveled areas likethe middle, middle third of the
state, we get a lot of commercefrom business to more people
living here.
It's just more dense and theytake care of the infrastructure
a lot better.
So it was the perfect storm, nopun intended, and a lot of
people were underinsured, youknow.
To go back to the flood policy,the difference between the flood
(07:01):
, between being covered by aflood policy or homeowner's
insurance, is surface water, andI could go into a deep dive on
that.
But a flood is exactly whathappened.
You have a river overflowingand you can't handle the volume,
so that spills over into areaswhere a lot of residential
housing, things like that andsurface water is.
If we get a very heavy rain formaybe two or three days, we're
(07:24):
in the dry part of the summer.
The ground can't absorb thatwater and that surface water
spills into the house.
That does not count as a flood,so that would be covered under
your homeowner's insurance.
Side note, we don't have a lotof basements in North Carolina
like they do up north, but forpeople who do have basements,
they often have something with asewer backup.
Because you have a bathroom inyour basement, you know that has
(07:45):
a connection to your sewer lineand sewer backup has a specific
endorsement on your insurancepolicy.
So you you have to ask youragent, hey, or have to tell him,
hey, I have a bathroom in mybasement and it is prone If we
get a flood.
You know I'm going to have aproblem with sewer backup.
But insurance is tricky and thefact that you have to have a
specific endorsement for thesewer backup, you have to have a
(08:05):
separate flood policy andthat's different than your
homeowner's insurance.
All that is just a lot to takein for the average homeowner.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
And the average home insurer will be able to offer
you flood insurance.
The average cost in NorthCarolina is about $840 a year.
Now some policies, the premiumsare $4,000 or more a year, and
there's obvious reasons.
If you live at the coast,you're going to pay a lot for
flood insurance because you havea higher likelihood of it.
But again, as you pointed out,a lot of places in the mountains
(08:31):
don't have it because theydon't really think about getting
a flood or the things thathappen that are the result of
the flood.
And $250,000 is not a lot ofmoney and, as a matter of fact,
for a lot of the houses that wesaw in Western North Carolina
and in Florida, say in Georgia,that were completely destroyed
or they're going to have to betorn down, that money is not
going to cover anything.
(08:52):
You're going to rebuild halfthe house, so it's better than
nothing.
But I completely can understandwhy someone in the mountains is
thinking well, I don't needflood insurance because this
literally is a one in everythousand year type event.
Ask your insurance agency am Icovered for a flood?
What's an act of God, Thingslike that?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah, when you read up on that surface water versus
flood water definition, I meanit sounds gray.
I know what I'm reading andI've seen it all go down and it
still sounds kind of gray.
I mean it sounds like they'llsay that you know, flood water
can be caused by heavy rains.
But then surface water iscaused by heavy rains and I'm
thinking to myself.
Really the coverage comes downto the discernment of the
(09:34):
insurance company.
So if you have a good insurancecompany, maybe they say you
know what?
You got six inches of water,we're going to call that surface
.
But if you got four feet, eightfeet, you know those are the
definite floods.
And I think the way that theywill make that delineation is if
it was a one day event or if itwas a four day event.
If you were underwater forthree or four days, that's a
flood all day long.
You know, if you had water inyour house and it maybe got into
(09:56):
your garage and your baseboardgot messed up, then they write
that off as surface water.
But it'll be interesting to seehow this all plays out.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Hey Donnie, what about water tables?
We have that in my neck of thewoods in Wilson, north Carolina.
The water literally rises up.
So I have a crawl space andwhen we get a lot of rain, or it
rains for several days, ortropical storm, I can open up my
little crawl space and look andI can see it be damp.
What if that water table risesup higher?
In other words, there's notwater necessarily draining into
(10:25):
your property or into your house, but the ground is so saturated
and you're so close to a watertable it literally seeps out of
the ground and starts coming up.
Is that flood?
Speaker 2 (10:37):
No, I would consider that surface water, so that
would probably be covered underhomeowner's insurance.
To be honest, I've never askedthat question specifically to an
agent.
I would say that you know that,having that vapor barrier I
think you mentioned you had thatput in your crawl space because
with no light and difference intemperature in a crawl space
it's notorious for being moistanyway and damp, and so that
(10:59):
vapor barrier is probably yoursaving grace right there.
I know you're further east thanI am and a water table there is
different than where I live,but I would say that if it did
cause a problem where you hadstanding water in there and it
did come from the ground, thatsounds like surface water.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Real quick.
Last things on flood insuranceyou get it.
You can't see a hurricanecoming and call them and say put
it in effect.
It's probably going to take amonth before it's going to be
active.
You can look at the FEMAwebsite.
They've got a program I've gotit right here called the NFIP.
It's the National FloodInsurance Program.
You can research that.
(11:33):
They know where the floodplainsare.
You can find out by a link.
If you're living in afloodplain, there's lots of
resources there.
So if you have suffered fromflooding or you just want to
know, should I get floodinsurance, fema is actually
probably a good place to startto get information on what you
want to do.
What we want to focus on therest of the show, though, is
things that you can do toprepare for a flood, what to do
(11:56):
if you have it.
So let's talk about some of thethings we can do to prepare for
minimum flooding.
Tropical storms are prettynormal.
What are some things ahomeowner can do to minimize it
if there is an excessive amountof rain that the streets and the
sewers and whatnot can't holdit?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
I think that just having a good evaluation of
where you stand and the heightof your house in relation to the
street the closest street ormaybe the neighbor probably the
most important part of thatevaluation.
Because, you know, during aheavy rain and I figured that
this out with my personal houseI had a couple of downspouts
dropped from the second floordown onto my porch roof and they
overflowed.
So the way I had to solve thatproblem is I had to get in a
(12:36):
rain suit, basically, and go outin the pouring rain on the roof
and figure out what was movingwhere and why that overflow was
was happening.
And, um, you know, it's justnot, it's not comfortable to
think about going out in thepouring rain, especially when
it's a gully washer, and seeingwhat's going on.
But I think it's after we seewhat just happened, in a worst
case scenario, it will serve youwell to get an idea.
(12:59):
If you are the downhill housefrom the street or the downhill
house from your neighbor, you'regetting all that runoff from
from their lot, and so when youthink of the thousands of
gallons of volume that ispassing across your lot or
through your lot, and if we hada situation where we got this
hurricane that thank God it wasmoving kind of fast or it would
have been even worse.
(13:19):
But, heaven forbid, we havesomething sit right on top of us
, moving five, 10 miles an hourso it takes forever to get out
of here.
That runoff is everything, andso all that's going to be
directed towards your house,your garage or what have you.
The way to fix that, or the wayto remedy that, is to have the
proper drainage system in placeand have positive drainage away
(13:39):
from your house.
Just with the grading alone,I'd say, is a single most
important thing to consider whenwe build a new house.
The code is you have to have 10foot of positive drainage in
every direction away from thathouse.
So that means you have to havea fall on the dirt landscaping
everything from your house 10foot away.
And if any water gets down byyour house, you know it either
(14:00):
goes around your house becauseof that elevated dirt right up
against the house or it just itfinds another way besides in
your house.
And so the drainage having alandscaping contractor come out
if you're not great in this area, having somebody come out and
say, hey, you know, take a lookat my house.
What do you recommend I do?
Do I need to add more?
Do I bring a couple loads ofdirt in here?
(14:20):
Do we need to build up thisarea?
And you know from the street, ifyou're downhill from the street
, that you get all that runofffrom the street.
There's no grass or anything toabsorb that.
So all that's coming to you andI've seen some terrible
neighbor situations where thehigher elevated neighbor was
just given the lower neighborthe business.
And it's not the neighbor'sfault, but it's just the fact
that you didn't make the rightaccommodations back when you had
(14:43):
a chance to get the gradingright.
But I think that it's worth itto get all that in place, have
your place evaluated by somebodywho knows what they're doing.
A landscaping contractor is agood place to start and I have a
couple of guys who I reallytrust.
So message us through thewebsite if you'd like a
recommendation or referral.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
So up on my little IG feed came this thing from Shark
Tank water acted flood bags.
You think of sandbags whenthere's a flood.
People are holding them up andthey're filling them up and they
set them up, but these thingsare flat and I mean like maybe a
half inch, but the sand orsilica or whatever is in it,
which is like a half a cupswells 300 times its size, each
(15:26):
little piece.
And when it gets wet itautomatically becomes a sandbag.
And then I read you can let itdry out in the sun and it'll go
back down and it can be reusedtwo, three, four times.
But what a great thing to havearound your house where you
could set it in place and ifwater comes up to it it's going
to automatically sandbag it.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Yeah, and even better than that, they're available.
I looked those up on Amazon.
There are a hundred differentsites that have those on Amazon
and they were available forovernight delivery.
Even so, you know, storm comingin tomorrow, as long as trucks
are running, or storm coming ina couple of days, you can get
next day delivery.
On those things and the factthat they are fairly cheap, I
want to say eight bags were like$130.
(16:07):
And you really only need thosebags around the penetrations,
like basically the exteriordoors on the low side of your
house.
And they had an alternative onAmazon called DoorDam and they
were anywhere from $600 to $800.
And the more I looked at thatthing I thought I can build that
and I may be wrong.
But with the Door dam it's alittle bit more to it.
(16:30):
But basically it's just a sealthat fits in between the jams on
an exterior door and it sealsthe bottom and the sides up to
about three feet.
And I can't justify paying $800for that.
But I could go to Lowe's andprobably for less than $100, I
could build a door dam.
So if you're handy, that may bean option.
And the other thing, this ishard as the owner of a roofing
(16:52):
company, we don't like Flex Seal.
When the commercial comes on, Ichange the channel because I
kind of always felt like FlexSeal was a novelty.
It's basically like silicone ina spray can and it will
temporarily stop a leak.
I'll give them that.
But when I looked on Amazon forthe water activated flood bags,
(17:12):
the very top line was a totalproduct line of flood prevention
from FlexSeal.
And what I just said is themost important thing is that
it's a temporary thing, so youdon't need this to be in place
for months like you would on aroof.
But with the FlexSeal theybasically have a caulk, a
specific caulk that goes in allthe cracks.
So around the door, under thethreshold, you would caulk all
(17:35):
those areas and then you eitherput a tape or a spray on there
and the best thing about it isit's removable and it doesn't
leave any residue.
So I can totally, if it's thator water in your house, I can
give Flex Seal my firstendorsement ever.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
As you would say, being a former insurance
adjuster, if you show that youtried to mitigate damage,
whether you use Flex Seal orpillows or piled up washcloths,
anything that shows that you tryto mitigate damage is going to
make an insurance adjuster happyand more likely to help get
that payout be higher.
So, whatever you can use, yep,good point.
I want to jump through a coupleof things, and this is what to
do in anticipation of a flood.
(18:13):
Again, we're not coming on theback of the floods in Western
North Carolina and go, hey, youshould have done this, but a
flood can happen anywhere at anytime.
So there's some things you cando in advance.
I think probably the biggestthing is document, document,
document, because whether it's aflood or a fire or something,
when you go through the processof getting insurance money to
(18:33):
pay for what you've lost, theywant documentation.
They want to know not that youhad clothes, they want to know
what clothes you lost.
They want to know what TV youhad.
They want to be great.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Well, imagine plugging in item for item into a
spreadsheet.
That's not so great, that'svery tedious, but if the
homeowner came to me with thespreadsheet, yeah, we're good,
we're great.
Thank you so much.
I can copy and paste that.
But the contents documentationis everything to the tune of
(19:16):
$100,000.
I mean, if you don't documentit, you're shorting yourself as
much as $100,000.
And what I tell people all thetime, walk through the house,
take a video of your furnitureand you don't have to take
individual pictures.
You can do a video and doscreenshots from the video, but
just anything showing that, hey,I really did have this.
If you have really expensivethings, like you know on my Best
(19:37):
Buy account when I buy a TV,that I have records for 10 years
back on all of my electronicsand I can just log into my Best
Buy account and pull thereceipts up.
So that's pretty black andwhite.
But with furniture, especiallyif you have designer furniture,
furniture touches the floor andif the house leaks it's going to
(19:58):
be on the floor.
The bottom of that furniture isprobably going to be ruined.
And if you paid more than roomsto go prices for things, you
probably want to document all ofyour receipts for the furniture
and jewelry is another bigthing.
Take pictures of your receiptsfor the furniture and jewelry is
another big thing.
You know.
Take pictures of your jewelryand it's not like you have to
share that, just have thatstored in case this comes up and
not the jewelry would getruined in a flood, but maybe if
(20:19):
the water was high enough.
And I know for a fact that theyhave free contents,
spreadsheets and basicallypaperwork that you can get right
there on the internet and youcan download that, print it off
and plug those in yourself.
If you have a day or two toprepare and you're at home and
you're not working, then that isprobably the best investment of
(20:40):
your time that I could think of.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
And you know what.
Maybe using a thumb drive was abad example.
I've showed my age.
But one thing you're rightabout everything's on the cloud
Receipts.
You can take a video of yourbelongings, you can take
pictures of certain items, youcan take pictures of contracts
and stuff or make copies of themand upload them, because, no
matter where you are, you canaccess that information anytime.
(21:05):
You don't have to say, well,it's all at my house.
You could be at an office oranother building, or you had to
have temporary housing and go.
I can get you any informationyou need about my house.
I have it all in this file thatI uploaded to the cloud.
Here it is on my phone or popopen a laptop.
You don't have to physicallyhave that information anymore,
so that's a great advantage.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Yeah, and I think one thing that I would add to that
and if folks are taking a listhere, of course you know
inventory all your contents.
And that leads me to the pointof you want to know how much
contents coverage you have.
And your house is coverage A,your outbuildings, any kind of
other structure, detached garage, that'd be coverage B, and so
(21:48):
if you have $500,000 worth ofcoverage A, you automatically
get $50,000 of coverage B.
So your policy puts 10% on thatand that's just an insurance
thing.
But your contents is the onevariable that you have.
You can specifically ask for acertain amount of contents
coverage.
It may affect your premium, butthat's the one thing that you
do have control over.
(22:08):
And I know that we've said thison the hurricane preparation
shows.
But know your insurance policyinformation, know your policy
number, know who.
You'd be amazed at how manypeople I ask, hey, who's your
insurance company?
And they, well, I don't know.
I got to go check with my wifeor, and at least one person
knows in that scenario.
But when I was an adjuster, Iwould say that 90% of the people
(22:30):
that I visited to handle theirclaim were first-time claim
filers.
They said we've never filed aclaim before and that was a
pretty interesting stat to seein real time.
And people just don't know youpay your insurance premium or
you got it on auto draft, andhaving that information handy in
the event of an emergency is areally big deal.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
We talked about this right before we started the show
and there are survival tips youcan take advantage of if you're
stranded at home, and I said aflood survival kit is kind of
like a camping kit.
Think of all the things youwould want if you were gonna go
out camping for four or fivedays.
If you had that same kit atyour house and you were flooded
(23:10):
as in.
You couldn't get out of yourhouse, you couldn't leave your
property.
These things would get youthrough.
We know obviously you have tohead to higher ground.
If your house starts taking onwater, you could end up on the
roof or the attic we saw inWestern North Carolina.
Sometimes that's not highenough, but let's focus more on
(23:32):
your stuck at home.
What are some of the things wewant to have in our possession
that would help get us through acatastrophe like a flood?
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Yeah, that's a genius analogy, by the way, I love
that you created that to camp.
And I think the thing thatcrossed my mind is I said, well,
maybe this is a good couplesexercise.
You could sit there and giveyourself a $200 allowance on
Amazon and watch the movieCastaway, and just you know,
just bye, bye, bye.
And I'm not a prepper, but Idon't think that preppers are
thinking the wrong way, becauseyou know it could hit the fan at
(24:02):
any moment with all we havegoing on with.
You know, storms and politics.
You never, you never, know.
I think that water supply is thefirst and most important thing,
because if a flood cuts offyour water supply, whether it be
your electricity to the well orthe city water supply, you can
survive without a lot of things.
You can lose 30, 40 poundswithout food, but you can't
survive without water, and Ithink that I read the rule of
(24:24):
thumb is one gallon a day perperson.
So if you think, if youtranslate that to what's going
on in Western Carolina, man,that that's a lot of gallons of
water and, um, maybe, taking thetime when things are really
good, going well, going aheadand, you know, stocking up cases
of water, put those anywhere.
You can store those, even ifit's in the attic and I know
that people would frown on mesaying that because not supposed
(24:45):
to let those get uh, get hotbut at the same time, if it's uh
, either drink the water that'sbeen in your attic or or nothing
, then I would.
I would take that all day long.
But you know, an emergency kitis is, um, or emergency medical
kits, not a bad thing.
I did uh read where, uh, it'scommon, when you're scrambling
around after a flood event, thatif you cut yourself, that that
(25:07):
emergency kit may come into play.
Side note, there is, you know,be aware, if your tetanus shot
is updated, because a lot ofbacteria and flood water, so you
have an open wound, that'ssomething that could really burn
you and, you know, end up in aworst case scenario, kill you
Flashlights, things like that.
You know, having a pair of goodpair of rubber boots I know if
you're a city slicker, thatmight sound crazy to you, but
(25:28):
rubber boots aren't thatexpensive and go to a sporting
goods store and get you a pairof rubber boots so that if it's
six inches or a foot of floodwater, you're still okay.
You got to take care of yourfeet and ask a soldier from
Vietnam how important that is,and they'll give you the rundown
there.
But with several other thingswe talked about before we
started the show, I'll let youlead into those.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Well, I think, if you can at your house, turn off
your utilities if you can andyou know how, which is why it's
always good to know how to turnyour water off.
We've already talked aboutprotecting your documents.
Make sure you can, even if it'ssomething short notice, like in
the mountains, throw them inZiploc bags, something
waterproof, and don't set themsomewhere.
I'd advise you keep them withyou because you don't know if
(26:08):
you're going to have to run outand then you don't have that
paperwork.
But it's also important, like alot of us at our house, at the
Smith house, our rule is, if thehouse God forbid ever caught
fire, we meet at our neighbor'smailbox across the street.
Kind of the same thing with aflood.
Do you have a plan if you hadto vacate your house quickly,
(26:28):
where you would go?
Some people will paint on theirhouses that they've left A flood
.
Do you have a plan if you hadto vacate your house quickly?
Where you would go?
Some people will paint on theirhouses that they've left.
You know this from going toKatrina.
You'd see houses where it'dmark empty or something and some
people literally were paintinginsurance information on the
side of their house or they werelisting.
Call me or I'm at this or I'msafe, so be able to communicate
(26:50):
with people if they come to yourproperty to know, hey, they
actually got out there, they'reOK.
And you saw that, katrina, alot probably.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Oh yeah, more so from a video standpoint.
I don't think I personallywitnessed that, because they
wouldn't let us in there forabout three or four weeks after
the storm had passed through.
So you know, the floodwatershad subsided and basically,
people who were stranded in aworst case scenario, like on
their roof, which brings me to agood point.
You know, when I sat down toput some notes together about
the show you can read on Googleall day long about flood
(27:19):
prevention but I thought, let meput myself in their shoes and
what would I do?
And probably the scariest thingthat I saw was that people were
actually.
They were in their house, theywere riding out the flood, had
nowhere to go, and once thewater gets up to four feet,
you're thinking, okay, it'sgoing to go back down, and if it
does not, you know, your atticis the only place that you can
go to keep, to keep alive.
And I kind of thought well, theaverage person who doesn't have
(27:41):
power tools and all that, youknow how could they do this?
And it's definitely importantto have a hammer and not the one
with the curved claw on theback.
You want a straight claw and ifyou're going to do this.
You know you have to if it'slife or death.
You'll take that straight clawand you can get through the roof
from the inside.
But you got to think there'splywood that are nailed to the
rafters and you got shingles andunderlayment on top of that.
So it's pretty darn strong andit's made to keep weather out,
(28:03):
but it's also tough for you toget from the inside out, and so
you know, if you have access toa Sawzall, you're not going to
have power.
I would say an investment inbattery power tools and go
somewhere cheap like HarborFreight.
You know I hate to give them anendorsement on the show, but
Harbor Freight is good for a one, one or two shot deal and it's,
you know, having a Sawzall,having having a drill with a
(28:23):
wood bit and just being preparedwith a, that should be part of
your emergency kit, especiallyif you're in a flood prone area.
But even more so than that, youknow, fast forward to the
scenario, that you have to dothat and you have to get out on
the roof to survive.
And hopefully there arehelicopters in play, like there
were in New Orleans and inwestern North Carolina.
That's what they're doing nowand you know they're flying
(28:44):
drones and droning in supplies,and I've heard a lot of mixed
things about that, that somepeople are shutting that down
and I don't understand why, butI hadn't had time to dig into
that to have credibleinformation.
But having some solar panels onhand, that's something you can
use whether it's a flood or notand it can cut down on
electricity.
But small solar panels arecheap.
(29:05):
It's enough to charge your cellphone.
I've been hearing a lot aboutthat that people are losing cell
service and they don't have away to charge the phone.
Well, if you've got a panel,you can move all that out to the
rooftop.
While you wait on somebody tocome get you the paint example
that you mentioned, you canpaint on your roof help
something in big letters, sowhen they fly over they know
that there's somebody stillstranded there.
(29:34):
One of the things I have in mypersonal house is a crank radio.
So I have something that youcan crank a few times.
It takes 30 seconds and thenboom, you've got a powered up
radio and you have at least anincoming means of communication
from the outside world.
And that led me to my nextpoint.
I started making notes abouthow can you communicate with the
outside world.
So of course I get on Amazonand I look up the range of the
latest, greatest walkie talkies,because walkie talkie sounds
like a dinosaur word, but theyhave walkie talkies out there
(29:55):
now that will span I thinkMotorola was the manufacturer.
You hadn't heard about themsince pagers and early cell
phones.
But they have walkie talkiesfor a hundred bucks that will
span 35 miles.
So that's strong and I thinkthat that's just a very, a very
wise hundred dollars to spend.
You know, just anything thatwould charge any kind of
electronic is a good bridgebetween technology and disaster.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Yep.
Well again, if you want to helpout what's happened in North
Carolina and other parts of theSoutheast, but especially
Western North Carolina, I highlysuggest SamaritansPurseorg.
That's Franklin Graham, billyGraham's son.
It's an incredible organizationand cash is king.
That allows them to decide whatneeds to be purchased first Is
(30:36):
it gas, is it water or supplies.
So so many little things youcan do.
Prep, because a lot of peoplein Western North Carolina will
tell you right now dang 30minutes of prep could have made
a big difference for me.
So we'll put this informationup on the website Links to
Samaritan's Purse if you needthat, and ways you can help, and
(30:57):
the website again isthecarolinacontractorcom.
But be thinking and try to makea donation to help somebody in
the western part of NorthCarolina after Hurricane Halina.
Yep.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Agreed.
Eric, Thank you for all thatand take care of yourself
everybody.
That evaluation of your houseand just how you guys would
react in the event of massivedevastation like this is
everything, and it couldliterally be life-changing for
your family.
So please take care of yourself.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Well said and God bless everybody and we hope to
see you next week on theCarolina contractor show.
Thanks for listening to theCarolina contractor show.
Visit the Carolinacontractorcom.
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