Did We Survive Hurricane Katrina or Not?

I don't mind advertising for Dean Smith at all. Feel free to call him when he's done here. *grin*

For the first time in almost a year - we have a sign in our yard again. I had no idea how much I missed the things, but they have become rather scarce over the course of the last few months... And I realize now that the decline in their numbers is directly related to a lack of progress in our area.

Mr. Smith has already been to the house to review what we're affectionately calling 'Phase I' of our repair project and tells us his crew will be arriving next week to get started. Next week! It seems like centuries have passed since I last dared even dream of having one completed room in the house.... And he said 'next week'... Not 'sometime this year' or 'I'll call when the list gets smaller' - but next week. I now have to pause and relish the words a bit more.

Pause.

Okay I'm back.

Phase I is specifically our kitchen. We decided to start with what would probably be the most costly project... and also chose the kitchen because it is where we all spend the most time in the house. Of course -- all the time in the kitchen means that this is also where most of our junk accumulates and it will be our task over the rest of this week to move all of said junk out of the way and into some other unfinished room. It also means that we will be without a kitchen again for maybe a few weeks. We've done that before though -- and under more dire circumstances... So I think I'm actually looking forward to rinsing out utensils in the bathroom sink and eating lots of cold sandwiches.

What I'm not looking forward to is moving all the junk back into the kitchen to make room for Phase II when it's over. :)

In Homeowner Assistance Grant News

What started out as a basically friendly mission to inform the folks at MDA that our damage assessment was inaccurate has become more heated -- at least on our side. Following the letter we received regarding the New Grant Calculation Policy and the receipt of our check -- we also received a letter informing us that under the New Grant Calculation Policy there would be no adjustment to our grant. It also informed us that the New Grant Calculation Policy should settle the vast majority of appeals and, therefore, if we still felt that we had an appeal that we would have to restart the process.

Now - our appeal was based entirely on the 'percent damage assessment' which we were told at the time was supplied by Allied American. A damage assessment of 20% for our entire house should be obviously inaccurate -- and we contend that a more accurate adjustment would be at or above 30% (closer to one-third). The New Grant Calculation Policy makes absolutely no adjustments to the 'percent damage assessment' but instead uses dollar-figure damage amounts - at least one of which is clearly based on the erroneous 'percent damage assessment'.

As a result - our appeal still stands and we have forwarded a second letter of appeal to MDA addressing the issue.

We have learned our lesson about 'leaving well enough alone' and allowing inaccurate reports and assessments to linger. We knew that our insurance payment for the roof and other damage was too low -- but we didn't feel that we were in a position to wait for an arbitration process to go through. Months later we discover that various agencies used the inaccurate insurance reports to determine our total 'wind damage'. We should have contested it then.

The same thing has now happened with the SBA and their damage assessment of our house. When we requested our report from SBA we discovered that a good portion of some of the largest repairs were completely left off the assessment... However the most glaringly obvious mistake on the report was the pre-Katrina value assessment of our home as well as the total square footage estimate. SBA's report stated that we had a 4800 square foot home that was worth $100,000 excluding the lot pre-Katrina. Wouldn't you like to buy real estate in THAT market? Further - the lot was valued by SBA at $45,000 - so our total property value pre-Katrina was set at $145,000.

Since at the time we were denied a loan from SBA - we decided that the mistake wasn't important... And correcting the error would only increase the loan amount... If we were denied for a $50,000 loan -- what exactly would be the point of being denied for a $100,000 loan too?

Fast-forward October 2006 and we learn that the MDA has decided to use SBA's damage assessment figures to calculate grant amounts. SBA had assessed our damages - excluding personal property at less than $50,000.... Not a lot of help there regarding an MDA grant. Ironically, however, SBA's assessed 'percent damage' (there it is again!) was actually determined to be 33.03% of the structure and the low dollar-figure assessment was due to the inaccurate estimation of the total value of our house.

And that is why we are now going to fight the assessment of the damage to our home listed on those legal documents until the cows come home.... Whether it results in a greater grant amount or not.... We are absolutely sure that years from now that 20% is going to come back to haunt us if we don't fix it now.

Our second appeal letter is in the mail today. Let the games begin.