We believe that we are the sum total of our experiences. We learn far more from new experiences than we do from repeating others. At our age, new experiences come less frequently, so we must embrace them.
When people find out we were flooded out of our home and office last September and that we spent five hours on the roof, they usually say how sorry they are. We tell them not to feel sorry, as it is a new experience for us. We hope to be better prepared for whatever comes. We had lived in the same home since the millennium changed. Sure, we vacationed in lots of different places over the past quarter century, but changing our residence six times in six months was new. For two months after Thanksgiving, we were with other refugees at a long-term stay motel, where we enjoyed a delicious buffet breakfast daily, and FEMA delivered hot meals for both lunch and dinner. People said we were getting a taste of assisted living.
We met a number of other folks there who were also long-term guests, thanks to either hurricane Helene or Milton. We generally sat together at breakfast and for hotel sponsored social hours Monday-Wednesday nights. We traded stories of our interactions with support groups and shared everything we were learning about disaster recovery, home repair permitting and such. We even shared contact numbers for repair folks and rode together to the nearby disaster recovery center to interact with FEMA and the SBA. Most of our fellow refugees have moved on by now, some into their partially repaired homes, others, like us, into new temporary locations until our homes are once again livable. As many of us are working to recover from Helene’s flooding, we are asking ourselves “what if.” Global warming is happening, and glaciers are melting, causing sea levels to rise. It might not be a hundred years before the next flood. It could even be this summer, or next.
Rebecca Penneys, the concert pianist we have written about, lives on an upper floor in a high-rise condo at the shore and also owned a north St. Pete house where she gave piano lessons and practiced on two very special Steinway grand pianos. After Helene got her floors wet, she moved the pianos to higher ground. She and her husband Ray bought the pianos another home on higher ground, out of the flood zone. It increased her commute by 20 minutes but feels the peace of mind is well worth it. Moving away from the beach is one solution to the flooding issue, but not the only one.
Our real estate columns in the last few issues have introduced the concept of a table built high enough to satisfy FEMA requirements, and a factory-built, hurricane-proof (to 200 mph) modular home custom designed for you can be fastened to one or more tables on one to three levels above the flood plain. Imagine what a brand-new, elevated, FEMA compliant home on your land would be worth to you, and to the next owner.
Modern Home and Building Movers, LLC (www.modernmovers.com), our cover story this month, is another solution. The photo on the cover is a Treasure Island home being elevated right now. They have been moving and elevating homes and much bigger buildings for over 70 years and have 16 unified jack systems, allowing them to elevate 3-4,000 structures annually. Theirs is an amazing family success story and they have a multi-million-dollar insurance policy to back them up.
We are also continuing to search out recommended tradespeople to help you with your recovery from the flood. You can help us out by suggesting the service folks you are happy with do some advertising with us, and that you mention seeing them in Paradise News if you contact any business we’ve told you about. If you have any issues with one of our advertisers, we want to know that too.
Thank you for being a loyal Paradise News reader.