Michelle Belding

Before having first hand experience of surviving a flood and figuring out how to recover and get back home, I had no idea how flawed the recovery process is and how vulnerable flood victims are.

I am going rewind to 2019 when my husband and I were house shopping. Retirement and family expenses influenced our home buying budget. In our 40s with two children in diapers, the last thing we wanted to do was to take on a big mortgage that would make providing for our children and growing old comfortably a challenge.

We spent months shopping around for a decent home at a good price in a state that really is too expensive for the average salary earners to afford; but we did not give up hope. Finally, we thought that we had found a perfect home. There was only one hesitation, and that was the two creeks that run along the side and backyard of the property. We loved the possibility of the kids having nature’s playground in their backyard – but the cautious side of me was concerned about how high the creeks may get during heavy rains.

Before making an offer on the house, my husband and I knocked on neighbors’ doors and asked if the creeks flood during heavy rains and the history of flooding in the town. The feedback was “no, this town don’t flood”, “we had flooding one time and that is because an old unmanaged dam broke during hurricane Sandy”, etc. Speaking with the neighbors, who had been residents for 20 – 60 years, eased our worries and we proceeded with making an offer which included a significant down payment.

I only later found out the house we were in the process of buying was in an AE Zone, which meant the house was in a flood zone, and we would be required to have flood insurance.

Fast forward to September 2021 our flood hell began, and we learned how flawed every step of the process is. On September 1, 2021, I sat in my kitchen filling out the kids “back to school” forms while listening to the rain heavily patter on my rooftop. It had not let up and by 5:30 pm, I found myself curious about the creek water levels. I headed to the back of my house only to find both creeks swelling from side to side and waters raging. Usually, there is at least a 10-foot drop between the creek wall in my yard and where the water line is, but in that moment the creek had risen at least 6 feet high. I knew if the rain did not slow down soon, the creek would spill into my yard and house.

I began to panic and found myself frantically calling hotels to book a room. If you can imagine, I was soaked frantic mess. Now I’m moving as fast as I can to get the kids and pets out of the car and back into the house and onto the 2^nd floor. As I am running around the first floor of the house unplugging everything I can think of and moving important and sentimental items from lower ground to higher ground, I am listening to my basement fill with water. The storm was not even close to being even over and I already felt the devastation.

We were displaced for 20 months paying rent and mortgage out of pocket. We had to get creative with how to get the house repaired during a pandemic, how to work with a shortage of or backorder on certain supplies, increased cost of materials, money hungry contractors who wanted to work part time a full times rates and the non-stop let downs and disappointment of government programs that are supposed to help.

To take control of our future and stop the madness, my husband and I had to learn how to become contractors and do the work ourselves. And although we are back home now, three years later, there is still work to be done all while working our full-time jobs and being the best parents we can be to our children. We are in debt beyond what could ever imagine and we still the regular life expenses such as paying the kids dental bills, car repairs, HVAC repairs, food and clothing expenses etc.

If you have gotten this far in my hurricane survivor story, then you know the road to recovery is flawed, expensive, lonely and depressing. For the life of me, I do not understand why mortgage forbearance and other options are not immediately available to flood victims starting on day 1 of recovery. It would be nice if the elected officials, who trust us when we vote for them, would stop monetizing us and instead help us. Micromanaging funds and treating people like incompetent burdens to society is insulting and does not get anyone home any faster.

The aftermath of Hurricane Ida taught me quite a few disappointing and sobering truths:

Local governments do not have workable plans for emergencies. I called 911 when the house shook and banged worried my house was about to float down to the river. The 911 dispatcher told me all their emergency crews were too busy to help. I had to get creative with keeping the kids calm for the duration of the storm, reassuring them that we were safe and that the house would protect us. Why aren’t there better emergency evacuations plans?
Insurance companies are not prepared to handle the high call volume post natural disaster. It took weeks of many unanswered and unreturned calls before I was able get a flood claim started and that was only after I raised hell with the insurance company.
Emergency Mitigation Services are widely unavailable. My home had taken in a total of 8 feet of water (6 feet in the basement and 2 feet on the 1st floor) and I had about 6 inches of mud covering both the basement and first floor. Not a single Emergency Mitigation Service company I had called was available. If a company answered their phone, they told me they were booked for months. For two straight weeks my husband and I shoveled mud, bucket-by-bucket, out of our house to save our home from becoming a mold hazard.
Contractors’ availability is also minimal. Where do I even begin. Much like the mitigation companies, reputable / well known contractors were either not answering their phones or were telling me that they booked for 2+ years. It was difficult finding an ethical and honest contractor so we had to worry about fraud as well.
Support from local government is nonexistent. Rather than my local borough checking in to see if my family needed help, they sent me a letter in the mail threatening to fine me if I did not remove the storm debris situated out front of my house. I was beyond furious and hurt especially considering I live in a small town and am stone’s throw away from the borough hall.
Insurance companies – particularly how they allocate money and determine what should be fixed, and the costs associated – fall short. My gosh was this a learning curve and such an inefficient process. In our flood claim, the mortgage company distributed money as repairs were being made. I had no idea I would have to provide specific formatted receipts and pretty much beg for money for the first distribution of funds to pay the mitigation company. No one should have to plead for this money.
FEMA, HARP, Blue Acres, etc. – all of these programs sound great, but they are difficult to qualify for and if you do qualify, there is a good chance you will not actually get the help. For example, we were told we qualified for rental assistance through FEMA, but we did not receive the assistance. HARP denied us any assistance since our home is 100% in floodway and there were other programs we did not qualify for one reason or another.