Jun 1, 2005

What's this a 3 game winning streak?

So as I sit here watching my A's complete a 3 game sweep of the Rays (I can't believe I'm actually proud and excited to say that), I'm flipping over to the extended Laguna Beach Landslides. If you don't know what happened out here, below is the link:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-060105slide_lat,0,118386.story?coll=la-home-headlines

I'm just shocked at some of the local news reporting of the landslides. First, we are nearly 14 hours after the initial landslide took place and this female field reporter who has been on all day is still so excited about being on TV, she has basically repeated the same 2 sentences over the last 12 hours. "Stan, I'm standing outside of Laguana Beach, where 18 houses were destroyed in a mudslide. This is just a small price these people pay for their beautiful ocean views." No lie, I have heard this about 25 times from this lady. I really don't know who is crazier, her or me expecting to hear something new.

Anyway, I got a couple of calls tonight on the landslides and how people from the East think that Californians are crazy for building their houses on the side of a mountain. I used to believe that until I actually spent some time in some of these houses, and let me tell you, when I have the money I will take the risk. These views are so amazing, its like you are at a beach resort everyday of your life.

When I say risk, I mean that if the house comes down, there is no coverage from your Homeowners Insurance. If it is a mudslide, then it is covered by the Federal Goverment under Flood Insurance, but if it is a Landslide, which this is, it is only covered by Loyds of London policy (since normal carriers don't want any piece of it) and usually runs close to $2,000-$3,000 for every $300,000 worth of home, and this was back in 1998.

And you wonder why you would ever need to know this? Well this also goes for sink holes. And if you don't think landslides can happen in your area, well if it can happen in PA, I'm sure it can happen in Iowa, Columbus, Capital Hill, or Cockeysville.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05049/459336.stm

2 comments:

skeetskeet11 said...

Any male who makes smiley faces on their blog is clearly a flaming homosexual.

Eric Z said...

So I'd assume that about 1% of the victims out there have the Lloyd's insurance? So most of those people are just SOL?

Wow. See- you live in Iowa, don't have to worry about that. And our disasters are covered by insurance!