[AT] Farm flooding update California - new info

charlie hill charliehill at embarqmail.com
Tue Feb 7 14:34:53 PST 2017


Cecil, after that particular hurricane there were stacks beside the road
in front of every flooded house.  I mean dump truck size stacks with items
FEMA had demanded be thrown away.  I have a friend who installs and repairs
TV's and Satellite systems.  He was down there on a service call and saw a
nearly new JD riding lawn tractor in one of the piles.  He asked the owner
and was told FEMA made him throw it out.  He told the guy how crazy that was
and said he would have kept it somehow.   The guy said, "I'm just doing what
they told me I had to do. Put it in the pile and wait for the clean up crew 
to haul it off.
If you want it take it, I didn't see anything."  My friend loaded it up, 
brought it home
and in a few hours had it running good as new.  That's just one small 
example.

Charlie

-----Original Message----- 
From: Cecil Bearden
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2017 7:53 PM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] Farm flooding update California - new info

Charlie:

I have been the chairman of a local floodplain board in OK since 82 or
83.  I once was cited as being the longest serving floodplain board
chairman and member in the US....     Don't know if that is official or
not....   However, a few years back maybe 20 now, FEMA got all high and
mighty and decided that everybody had to come up to their standards.  I
have not heard of throwing everything away here after a flood, but when
the Feds get involved, they think that everyone has insurance and it
covers 100%.  After the 1995 bombing of the OKC Federal building, a
restoration company was brought in to do what the employees should have
been doing.  These guys used rented trucks and homeless mission part
time workers.  ( same as all disasters)  They were advised by the OK
risk management director to trash all chairs and wall sections ( I call
them Lego style ) that had any fabric, due to the risk of glass being
embedded in the fabric.    The furniture went into a semi van.  I
followed it to a local used office furniture dealer.  They ran a shop
vac over everything and sold it.  The dealer paid cash to the
driver............

During these disasters, there always some shady deals, and the Feds are
in the middle.........  The guy who was at the center of this was later
a City manager where over $200K disappeared.  They never proved
anything, but he just kept showing up in government offices.....  The
old saying "follow the money"  applies in all disasters...

Cecil in OKla

On 2/6/2017 1:31 PM, charlie hill wrote:
> Good luck with that.  I hope you are correct.  From a government
> perspective, NC is trying hard to be California east with regulations.
> I can tell you for sure, if that happened here the state, county and
> probably federal government would be in here telling us what we
> can and cannot fix. Here is an example.  This area of NC is prone to
> hurricane tidal flooding. That is different from the river flooding
> we talked about earlier. Both are caused by hurricanes but the tidal
> flooding
> is quick and short.  Down nearer the coast than I am there are many houses
> owned by very poor people that have been flooded dozens of times over the
> years. In the past the folks got some clorox and poured it around in the
> house,
> ripped up any carpets, ripped out wet sheetrock, pulled up a few floor
> boards
> to let everything drain and waited for it to dry.  Then they made repairs 
> as
> they
> could afford and went on with life.  Then about 20 years ago we had a
> hurricane
> that flooded a lot of those houses.  FEMA showed up with the county 
> building
> inspectors
> in tow.  The proceeded to condemn houses and require that they be brought 
> up
> to code
> before they could be reoccupied.  The owners complained that they couldn't
> afford that.
> The government said they could borrow the money from the Small Business 
> Adm.
> The people
> said we can't make the payments.  The government said too bad.  Now those
> houses sit
> abandoned and the folks, mostly older and poor, have moved on or moved in
> with family.
> Don't get the idea that private property rights mean anything.
>
> Look to make my point because I know you are reading this as bad as it 
> was.
> They made people
> throw away bicycles, children's plastic swings, slides and big wheel
> tricycles, riding lawn mowers,
> etc.  because they had been touched by flood water and might be
> contaminated!  If water lines
> or wiring in or under the floor of a house were touched by the flood water
> it had to be ripped out.
> If the flooding went above the receptacle boxes in the walls ALL of the
> wiring had to be ripped out back
> to the panel box.
>
> Charlie
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Grant Brians
> Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2017 3:32 PM
> To: Antique tractor email discussion group
> Subject: Re: [AT] Farm flooding update California - new info
>
> California is an interesting mix of getting things done efficiently and
> not at all. Most of the rest of the country thinks we must be lazy with
> beaches, skiing and Hollywood, but the reality is that California has
> the highest average work week in the country, the highest productivity
> and the largest economy. At the same time we do have lazy people like
> every place and much of the state is too expensive because too many
> people want to live in those areas.
>        In this case, I think I can prove that lack of maintenance of the
> creek bed and levees caused the damage and so not even enter the zone of
> wetland or not. This land does seasonally flood but except in this
> damage situation, it has never been covered for more than three days at
> a time and the water flows off, no ponds. It is literally a flood PLAIN.
> So the issue will be fixing the situation not proving it is ok to do so.
>                   Grant Brians
> On 2/5/2017 11:54 AM, charlie hill wrote:
>> Grant, if a flood washed out an area such as you described in my area of
>> the world I really doubt that you or the land owner would be allowed to
>> fix it.  They would call it an act of God and proclaim it a wetland.  The
>> state
>> would claim ownership or at least control of it and that would be the end
>> of
>> it.
>>
>> Charlie
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Grant Brians
>> Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2017 9:08 AM
>> To: Antique tractor email discussion group
>> Subject: Re: [AT] Farm flooding update California - new info
>>
>> Dave, government is only peripherally involved in the cause of the
>> damage. Because stream clearance has been prohibited without a lengthy
>> and expensive process of approval and the flood control district never
>> had taxing authority and no one wanted to run for a position it went
>> defunct. It exists on paper but not in fact. As a result I was working
>> with the county's flood agency before these floods to help get the
>> needed functions operational under their legal purview, but nothing
>> concrete had been done yet in the last 9 months I was pushing....
>>         No, this is not on land I own either, I just lease it. This makes
>> things more complicated yet. In short, I will be continuing to see if it
>> is possible to recover from the damage there or not. So in regards to
>> act of God or not it depends on who wants it to be or not be one. If it
>> were not so serious for me I would be laughing because it is truly funny
>> how things can get messed up when the community does not come together
>> to resolve issues.
>>                  Grant Brians
>> On 2/4/2017 2:51 PM, Dave wrote:
>>> I can understand what you describe, Mike and agree that IF the 
>>> government
>>> was responsible for Grant’s situation then they should be held
>>> accountable. But in Grant’s case it sounded like an act of God and I was
>>> wondering if I had missed something. Thanks!
>>> Dave
>>>
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