As mentioned a few days ago, the issue of getting home is a factor in making the decision about evacuating or not. In this case, since Hurricane Irma was highly destructive in some areas and not as much in most, those who did not suffer severe damage can’t help but wonder if they should have hunkered down instead. The sheer process of evacuating, unless done so at the earliest sign of trouble, and trying to return as quickly as possible means coping with drives that can be 30-80% longer than usual and the potential to not be able to get gas or a place to stay during the trip. This is added to the stress of not knowing what the outcome of the pending disaster will be.

For people who go into a shelter, there is often the inability to leave as soon as they would like because roads and streets may not be passable. For thousands here, even if their home did not suffer great damage, with 80% of the county without power, that meant unpleasant conditions at home at a minimum, although most were ready to try and manage. The drawback to waiting for the initial shortages and restrictions to pass before returning is if you do have damage, you are that much more behind everyone else who is making claims and getting clean-up and repairs starting.

Situations like this are something too few people consider when they make the decision to relocate to an area where natural disasters are known to occur. Tornadoes and earthquakes are two of the exceptions because there is still little ability to have much warning about those. Hurricanes, floods, and blizzards all bring the thorny question about what choice to make. This is why knowing what to do to be genuinely prepared no matter which option is chosen is important.

Back to the point of us believing we would evacuate for a really bad storm of Cat 3 or higher.As it turns out, this is a more difficult choice than we expected. Not for us as we have no children at home, pets to take into account, or lack of places to go. As the mayor of Houston discovered, there are very real issues with trying to evacuate tens of thousands of people in a short time frame. And there are special issues in trying to evacuate people who are older. We had not clearly understood this part until this past week and discussions swirled around choices people were making. I won’t go into all of them because I need to see what the ultimate outcome is of Irma and her impact. I can speculate, but would rather have the definitive answers before I say more.

Aside from the importance of proper construction and things like hurricane shutters is the ability to have adequate supplies to remain off the streets for at least 3 days – 4 is better. You may risk going stir crazy with no power, TV, etc., but the first responders and repair crews need to be able to move about as well as people who have to check on others such as older relatives/friends. The aftermath of people who don’t really need to trying to get gas and groceries can cause serious problems. Once traffic can flow, supplies can also flow, but it can take up to a week for that to happen.

Okay, I need to do a few more things in prep, but wanted to post this because I don’t know when we will lose power and connectivity.

With Irma heading this direction, whether to stay or go is a difficult choice in many cases. There are those who have neither the resources nor the physical ability to evacuate and having pets complicates the situation. In looking at people who do have a choice, several things come into play, but let me focus on hurricane clips, also known as straps.

One of the good things to come from the terrible destruction of Hurricane Andrew was an in-depth study of what went wrong from a building code perspective (enforcement is a different issue). The Army Corps of Engineers was very much involved in the study and since I’m not an engineer, I’ll put this in simple terms. If a house is built so the walls and roof can remain intact as a “unit”, the odds of severe damage are greatly lessened. Some seemingly innocuous pieces of metal were developed called hurricane clips or straps and these are installed every so many inches on roofs in order to provide this “remain as a unit” effect. When we moved into our current house, the covered terrace was across two-thirds of the back and we wanted to extend that across the entire back. The company we used at the time had an architect who drew the plan to where you really couldn’t tell it was an addition. However, since it included a section of roof and especially because it tied into the existing roof, it had to pass code inspection. The inspector who came invited Hubby to come up on the roof with him and he showed him how the hurricane clips were installed (properly). Our house, like so many in South Florida, is of concrete construction with steel beams specifically chosen to meet the revised building codes for this environment.

Another important issue is storm shutters and I’ll save that for a future post.

For those who don’t live in the area, “Hurricane Andrew” is often referred to as, “Oh right, the hurricane that wiped out Homestead.” Yesterday was the 25th year since the massive destruction and as was to be expected, there has been a run-up to, and lots of coverage of, events as people looked back to that time. We were not here. In fact we were overseas, and unlike today, there was no Facebook, Twitter, streaming news, etc. We also did not have friends or family in the area.Our information was limited and by the time we did relocate, the housing boom was in full swing. (I’m not going into the subsequent housing bust in this post).

When I began to write for the local community weekly paper, my focus then (as now) was business, community, and the military. Not surprisingly, in speaking with business owners, those who had been through Andrew meant they had survived both personally and professionally. What I learned in talking with them was how so many people made the decision not to rebuild and relocated instead with Georgia and the Carolinas as mostly the states of choice. The destruction of Homestead Air Force Base was a huge blow to the economy as well, a secondary effect rarely understood by those who didn’t experience it. In knowing what we do of how these issues work, we can appreciate the fight it took to keep the base even as a “shadow” of it’s former self with the conversion to an Air Reserve Base. There was a historical parallel with the Hurricane of 1945 when with the end of WW II, there was the usual draw down of military forces and posts, and the severe hurricane damage to Homestead Army Airfield made it an easy choice for closure. A decade passed before it re-opened. Although converting from active Air Force into Homestead Air Reserve Base (HARB) meant it was much smaller, retaining it was vital. That struggle paid off and today, there are multiple military units and federal  agencies such as U.S. Border Protection on the grounds. Among all the other efforts to recover which can be seen throughout the area, this is a example of holding on to what was a foundation in order to rebuild.

For reasons that aren’t particularly important, the subject of reverse mortgages have been recently discussed among my friends. When I wrote, Your Room at the End: Thoughts About Aging We’d Rather Avoid, I touched briefly on the topic. At that time, reverse mortgages were fairly new and there were some issues that seem to have since been smoothed out. As with any major financial decision, consulting an expert is strongly advised. In general, a reverse mortgage is good for certain categories of individuals and not suitable for others. In a nutshell, a reverse mortgage is sort of what it sounds like. A financial institution “mortgages” your home for a percentage of the appraised value (usually a pretty high percentage). You can take the money of that value in multiple ways which I’ll get to in a moment. You do not repay the mortgage until you move from the home. In the event all individuals who signed the reverse mortgage pass away, the estate is to repay the mortgage. That would ordinarily mean the house is sold by the estate and like any other sale, if the value is greater than the amount owed, the estate keeps the balance. If the market is weak and the property cannot be sold for the amount owed, the financial institution cannot go after any source of payment except the estate. In other words, if you have heirs who don’t want to pay off the mortgage to own the house, they do not assume that debt.

Okay, getting money from the reverse mortgage usually comes with four options; a lump sum for the entire allowed amount; a monthly payment spread out over an agreed-upon time; a line of credit, or a combination of options. It’s important to remember this money is not taxable. Which option suits you will depend on your circumstances. The point to a reverse mortgage though is to allow you to remain in your home and the requirement is you must keep the home maintained, carry insurance and pay your property taxes. So, when deciding how to take the money, you have to make sure you can fund those items.

There are usually three areas that trip people up. There will be some costs to taking out the reverse mortgage just as with any other type of mortgage and this amount is usually subtracting from the final amount allowed. Your home may not be worth what you think it is, and therefore, the final amount may be less than you anticipated. As you age, in all likelihood, you will require more assistance in maintaining the house, and that usually incurs costs. Depending on your age, you could easily remain in your home for 20-30 years. Another important point is the bank cannot “call” the mortgage as long as you maintain the house, insurance and pay your property taxes.So, let us say whatever amount of money you received is spent and you are still in your house. That’s okay as far as not repaying the mortgage goes. If, on the other hand, you have not set aside adequate money for the minimum upkeep, insurances and taxes, the bank can foreclose. When people take the lump sum or even have a multi-year payout, they don’t always apply the money in such a way to ensure they can cover these costs.

All of this is a general overview and everyone’s situation has unique aspects, but if you have no one to leave your house to, a reverse mortgage could be a useful financial tool. The specifics and rules do change, but it might be something worth exploring.