April is here, time to get the yard done, the landscaping in and the house power washed. Its also the time for the weather to turn a bit more severe. We all keep a little closer watch on the weather forecast this time of year. Sudden storms can roll in quickly with hail, winds and flooding. Recent years have been rough in the Houston area with flooding events, so I thought this months topic would be a bit more personal. It’s not something most of us think about until it’s to late, Flood Insurance.
Thankfully, our neighborhood is not in a flood plane. That means we will never flood, right? Well, I can personally answer that with a resounding no. Tax Day 2016, my home flooded. It was not the feet of water that struck some and dominated the news for days. By that standard, the flooding my family and home endured seems so insignificant. We had about 1/4 of and inch of water in our home. Enough to ruin all of the flooring as well as needing to remove 1 foot of sheetrock from all the walls downstairs. Overall, the damage total cost was about $12k. Without flood insurance, we had no choice but to pay the full cost out of pocket and to save where we could. Thankfully FEMA did declare that event a disaster and helped pay for the clean up to the tune of $4k, but that was no guarantee. FEMA has some complicated government formula to determine if an “event” is a disaster. What caused our issue was later discovered to be a partially crushed and inadequate drain pipe, probably installed in the 90s, leading from the south end of Traditions and Princeton Place into the bayou. This caused the street to not be able to drain quickly enough and 24 inches of rain fell in just over an hour. The county as now replaced and enlarged this drain pipe, but will it be enough in a similar event, I truly hope to never find out.
I now have flood insurance. Flood insurance for my home, albeit one of the smallest in the neighborhood, is about $400/year. It’s a small price to pay to ensure my home will be repaired should it ever happen again. With construction, the continued urbanization of our area, issues with the drainage along Kuykendaul (that’s another story), yearly hurricane season just around the bend, and the relatively low cost of having it, I believe we all should get it. Chances are, I will never need it, but as the case with all insurance, it’s good to have when you do.
Call and ask about it today. It takes a 30 day grace period to become effective, so don’t wait too long.
-Scott
The opinion expressed in this article is my own and do not reflect the position or opinion of anyone else in the Traditions neighborhood or it’s HOA board of directors.
Traditions 
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