Aftermath of Hurricane Ian

[Bruce]

Looking at the pictures coming out of the Ft Myers region, it looks like many boaters didn't heed the storm and pull or relocate their boats to safety.
During my marine service days and being part of two marinas, after Andrew and Katrina insurance companies changed their protocols.

If you owned a boat and left it in the water during a hurricane warning, you had no coverage. Yachts were required to move to non hurricane prone areas such as up north.

Marinas, the ones where I was located, the insurance coverage for dock and piling damaged changed to the marina had to be emptied of all boats as the boats left in the water could and would damage docks.

The amount of damaged and totaled boat picks I'm seeing on the initial pics coming out of the area are crazy.

Why would you leave your boat in the water with a Cat 4 and close to 5 storm coming down on you? Makes no sense.

[Ironworker]

Agree with you Bruce. My guess some of the smaller boats on trailers may have been washed away in the surge but there is no excuse for the boat owners not protecting their boats...... unless they had the expectation that their 1 mpg toy in $6 gallon gas market would become the insurance companies problem.

[Carl]

I have no answers, but can say my dad who is on the East Coast has been having an increasingly tougher time trying to find a place to haul his boat for hurricanes. His marina ran out of space, others were not sure if they could get him out in time, being backed up. The last couple of hurricanes he brought his boat up river, off to a canal and secured at a friend/acquaintance's home.
Luckily the storms were not that bad.

That said, when Sandy came to town most of the boats on the hard were washed away along with the docks and boats that remained in the water.

Those pictures bring back lots of bad memories...

[Bruce]

Can't help on the hard and washed away, but left in the water?

Not sure how any insurance company will cover that loss. People may have a surprise when they go to make a claim. Agent: Sorry, you were supposed to put the boat on the hard deck or move out of the area not leave in the water.

[Amberjack]

Over the years more and more boats, fewer marine haul out facilities. Some may have been ignorance or attempted insurance fraud but I bet most couldn't get a haul scheduled, just put the family in the car and drove away.

[PeterPalmieri]

During Sandy I stayed in the water way up river and survived without issue. The majority of boats on land floated off their jack stands and either sunk because the drain was pulled or ended up in a pile.

I guess it all depends and there is a lot of luck involved. Most insurance companies offered to cover the cost of hauling ahead of a hurricane and marinas were overwhelmed with the time crunch and space.

It’s an awful situation but it’s only stuff.

[Carl]

From my limited understanding a lot of marinas are purchased to put up condos with a couple slips.

More people and less slips, less space to haul boats makes things interesting. IF I was in that area with a yacht,,,where do I go on short notice. North and cornered…East and hope hurricane don’t veer. Run across the Lake, head to the Keys n around.

Not my area so I don’t really know….


Lots of damage, lots of claims.

[pschauss]

During Sandy I stayed in the water way up river and survived without issue. The majority of boats on land floated off their jack stands and either sunk because the drain was pulled or ended up in a pile.

That appears to be what happened to my boat in Sandy. She came with paperwork which showed that the previous owner had collected the agreed value from the insurance company, bought her back from them, and made a bunch repairs. Based on the receipts that I have, I know that he replaced the struts, one prop shaft, and both props. I know that he put in long blocks at the same time, but I don’t think that was related to the hurricane damage.

[Tony Meola]

Getting pulled in a storm is harder and harder. During Sandy the Marina I use worked for 3 days before the storm to get people out and they still could not pull all their customers. Luckily I was out the week before.

I just changed Marina's for the winter as the one I used for the last 38 years was sold and the new owner does not staff it. It is used for summer dockage and winter storage, but they are not adding staff to man the Marina. I asked the new owner in the event of a storm will you be able to pull the extra 150 customers you just aquired for land storage. He gave me some BS that during Sandy he pulled over 180 boats.

Some times it is what it is but as I saw all those boats floating along down there, they did not even attempt to pull them. My cousin lives right in the bulls eye area. He kept telling me, Hurricanes don't hit here. That is the mentality down there.

[Carl]

He kept telling me, Hurricanes don't hit here. That is the mentality down there.

"Hurricanes don't hit here"

I said that before Sandy as I pulled the boat, emptied the house of valuables, and then evacuated before it hit. Several trips to the business with appliances, paperwork n stuff. It looked like a mix of an appliance store and garage sale here.

I think it is hope for the best as you still have to live and need a certain mindset to get through the day without being a basket case. It would be nice to enjoy what life has to offer as well....but still, prepare for the worst. A head in the sand is dangerous. Gorgeous area in Florida where Ian hit, but there is a risk. Kind of a balancing act of how much can you gamble on losing it all for a slice of heaven on earth.

[Rawleigh]

My boat has been in the water for every hurricane on the Bay since 1966. That said the ones we have had were nothing like Ian or Sandy. i remember when we were in the cone for Sandy, and that was terrifying. I was so happy when it turned north to go visit Carl, although I would not wish that on anyone!!

[Amberjack]

Appalling images out of Florida, houses gone and lives ruined. Down on the ground the amount of human misery must be unbearable.

Looking solely at the marine damage Florida has developed an unsustainable situation. Thousands of boats including many substantial boats were wrecked and will have to be totaled. I don't believe there was enough capacity to haul them in a limited time frame and there wouldn't have been enough space to dry store them even if they could have been hauled. With nowhere to go they were doomed as soon as Ian formed. According to Bruce the insurance companies adjusted their coverage after previous storms so the owners will have to bear the loss and probably the state or federal govt will wind up covering the cost of picking the wrecks. A boaters' paradise turned into a death trap. Someone brighter than me will have to come up with solutions but I would think twice now about about putting a boat on the Gulf Coast unless it was small enough to trailer or large enough to have a professional crew to move it out of the way.

BTW I checked my yacht coverage and damage from "named storms" is excluded. Not a big issue here, I'm more concerned with rodent damage (muskrats & otters) which is covered.

[Tony Meola]

At least up hear in the North East if you need to, you can run north a couple of hours and take the boat up the Hudson. Way up. That is what the Coast Guard in NY Harbor does.

The issue with Sandi was not the wind or rain, but the surge it pushed in. It came ashore in our area. The break through on the barrier island is what did alot of places on Barnegat Bay in. New inlet cut up at Mantolokin so we had water rushing in the bay from the North and then Barnegat inlet to the South. They filed the break through in repaired the area. But there will be another break some other time in another place.

Go back in time and find an old chart and you will see an inlet directly across from Toms River called Cranberry Inlet. Filled in on its own, but at one time it was a huge inlet. If it was there once before it will come back again sometime.

It will be a mess for a while. I expect that next year the insurance coverage for both boats and flood on homes will skyrocket.

[DanielM]

This is going to make a tough situation worse in regard to boat insurance. Especially for older boats.

I looked at a B38 a couple years ago that was dang near free (~10k) with running 3208s in South Carolina. Insurance and (mostly) transport killed the deal.

Boat US and Geico had completely exited the market for anything over 30’ long and older than (I think) 30 years, and many other underwriters had followed suit. Anyway a 1976 B38 was going to be hard to get bound. Especially in Florida where I was hoping to take it. The most knowledgeable agent I talked to said the big underwriters had reached their exposure limit in Fl and were stepping away from that market. I did find a couple agents that could get it bound. Both in Florida and in Texas, but it was a little pricy. Not stupid pricing, but hard to find someone to write coverage at that time. Texas was a little better for finding insurance but transportation was quite a bit more.

So I expect the boat insurance market will get tighter.

Anyway like I said insurance and transport killed that deal for me. Probably was a good thing, I need another broke boat like I need another hole in my head. But I was lusting after that widebody, it was a screaming deal for someone local.

[DanielM]

As always my thoughts and prayers to any of the B31 fold that are in SW Fl. I don’t know how many folks from the board are down there but keep them in your thoughts.


Have any of you NE guys heard from Brewster? I know he took the Cormorant Princess to Naples a few years back. Hope he’s doing ok.

[Geebert]

Looking at the pictures coming out of the Ft Myers region, it looks like many boaters didn't heed the storm and pull or relocate their boats to safety.

That would have been difficult, if you followed the news coverage, the entire west cost at various times was the predicted landfall.
They called for evacuation of tampa, then it was going to sarasota, then it was going to Venice, then it actually made landfall on cayo Costa, just off fort myers, and all the weather geniuses congratulate themselves on accurate predictions.

Ft myers shrimp boat fleet is in a pile on the dock, they usually head out away from the storms, but for some reason stayed tied up. Maybe they planned on tampa like we were told, and too late to move when you get the weather corrected update? Maybe we'll learn more in the days to come.

We haven't had phone service since ian came through, no internet, no power, even water Utilities got knocked out, which doesn't usually happen.
My internet finally started working just now so i could make a post.
My boat is in as good of shape now as it was before the storm, which is, needs a little work. Of course now, is clean up time. So the boat waits some more.

[Hueso]

Part of my practice is insurance law. My two cents are look for your contracts/insurance policies and read them line by line and/or retain a lawyer in order for him/her to take a look at it (preferably in the insurance practice).

[Tony Meola]

Todd

Glad to hear you made out ok.

David

Good advice.

[Geebert]

Todd

Glad to hear you made out ok.

David

Good advice.

Thank you
And
Agreed.

There's a lot of total loss around us, but we made out ok.
The biggest hurricane relief effort I've ever seen is underway.
Blackhawks and chinooks are constantly back and forth.
The local hospitals were completely relocated to other unaffected hospitals due to the lack water supply.
Non stop caravan of ambulances from all over, transporting patients elsewhere. Including entire nicu floors.
Lots of agencies all working together.
If any other state needs advice on storm relief management, call Ron Desantis. There's a lot of things that could have gone worse for us, we're really blessed that he's as sharp as he is.

[cariedl]

Anyone have any insights on how to pick up salvage boats, seems like an opportunity to possibly get a boat for next to nothing?

[Dug]

Hurricanes scare the living crap out of me. This storm only serves to reinforce catastrophic damage possible. My heart goes out to everybody impacted. I've always wondered why more boats don't get out of the way and on this one I can only imagine that the prediction that it was going somewhere else was part of the decision-making process. That being said a storm that large it's pretty hard to get away no matter where you go.
Where I keep Alchemy on the Connecticut coast I run it to a marina called the Chester point Marina that's about half way to Hartford up to Connecticut River. It's about the best hurricane hole I can imagine. The only drawback is that if it's a really good rain event which most hurricanes are the Connecticut River's pretty full ship and the run out to the sound does present some pucker factor because you don't know if there's a tree floating under the surface. I try to take it easy and be very extra vigilant.
My assumption is that every area presents its own unique challenges. I truly feel and empathize for the people both in Puerto Rico as well as Florida for their respective storms. It's the real deal and no fun.
I completely understand what David said about understanding your policy. I insure with Boat US and got an updated insurance survey a couple of years ago which really help them feel more comfortable with my boat. One thing I love about their insurance approach is that they pay half the hauling cost for a named storm. That means it costs me just a shade over $300 for the peace of mind of having Alchemy out and on the hard. That far inland the water would have to rise pretty high cause problems but at that point, that's why I have insurance. The rest is up to God.

[Ironworker]

A little bit of a stretch from the thread topic but I place very little faith in insurance especially hurricane insurance. Add in the fact that its extremely difficult to get coverage on a boat older than 20 years, then you might as well skip the comprehensive coverage and just get liability if necessary.

[Tony Meola]

Rick

You are finishing up your boat, so basically if you did it right, it is as sound as a new boat. With a survey you should not have any issues getting coverage.

[Tony Meola]

Dug

Unfortunately no matter what we do, the boat is stll left to chance. I was thinking about using the slidemore system just in case I can't get pulled. Being on a lagoon if she can handle the wind then these should be able to handle an extreme tide such as what we had with Sandy.

[Bruce]

Ft myers shrimp boat fleet is in a pile on the dock, they usually head out away from the storms, but for some reason stayed tied up.

Commercial fleets tend to head to sea as you say, would be interesting to hear their reason for not doing so. Would also be interesting to see what their insurance coverage is.

People have come to depend on the local 5 O'clock news weatherman to give accurate reports. Down here they are wrong more than they are right. In the effort to get ratings over other stations they have also had continued coverage of stop signs blowing back and forth and palm trees swaying and hyping it up. People have gotten tired of the dog and pony show and don't pay attention.

The same weather maps they read are available to everyone so with a little bit of smarts anyone can predict what they do. I learned long time ago doing boat trips across oceans and vfr flying that you had better know weather patterns. When you can't pinpoint severe weather for whatever reason, its better to err on the side of caution.

I was offered a trip as an engineer on a 90' Burger yacht to go from Palm Beach up thru the Hudson into Canada. It was back in the 90's and a week before we were to leave the weather reports off the Carolina coasts were not good. Seas running predicted 10' to 15'. Since we were running offshore the whole way I met with the captain and relayed my concerns and he laughed them off.
I told him to find another engineer and they left a week later. They got off the Carolina coasts and seas came up.

Capt wouldn't come in and the pilot house windows blew out and walls of water came into the yacht pretty much trashing the whole interior and almost floundering the yacht after electrical shorting out shut down the old Cats. Lucky the engine room had manual bypass fuel valves and they got the engines running again and then came in.

Owner had been pissed at me for canceling at the last minute, but called from the Carolinas to apologize for the Capt and himself and told me I was right on. I said it wasn't me, I'm no magician, I just know how to read weather front maps.

[Dug]

I have seen a couple of instances where because the original storm track was predicting a Tampa Bay bull's-eye, people moved their boats to Fort Myers in an effort to get out of the way. That may explain some. But if you own the marina and you're truly worried about it, you're not letting anybody tie up because you don't want the damage to your facilities.

We may never know. Just keeping everybody there in my thoughts.

[Geebert]

Its definitely a mess on all points.
We've had hurricanes before, and cleaned up and got back to normal.
But this one is on a scale that i think few have seen before.
Some of the long term projections of what will happen in this area are dismal. The big attractions to this area have been annihilated, and cut off from the mainland. Ft myers beach, Sanibel island, captiva, pine Island. Lee county is heavily dependent on tourism and seasonal residents, drawn by these areas. If their homes were total loss, and the rentals are total loss, and the hotels are gone, and they have to go somewhere else for a year or more, will they ever come back?
Lee county is estimating they'll lose 40% of the annual budget from the loss of tax revenue generated by these areas, making rebuilding more difficult.
South west florida was the fastest growing area in florida, will it continue or will people redirect their plans to avoid future storms?

I dont think people will forget about this area completely, but i think it will be a long recovery that we have not experienced before.

[Bruce]

Andrew and Michael were both cat 5 and devastating. I was in Kendall 2 weeks after Andrew with a buddy trying to see his mom. Its nothing I've ever seen before or since.
But today you wouldn't know anything happened.

All those places on the west coast will come back with time. Many long time locals who don't have insurance or great coverage may not be able to rebuild but will sell the land to someone who will. I look at Mexico Beach and 3 years after how its come back. Housing is predicted to be 10 fold what it was.

How many times will people in the hills of California rebuild and get burnt out with fire? Bout the only time I know of where natural type disasters happened and people didn't come back was the underground coal fires up in Penna and active volcanoes where lava is still hot.

If humans are anything, they are resilient. Towns and cities will adapt. Not everyone is gonna come out of this will be a happy camper for sure. They already have one temp bridge built and I saw a half dozen publix trucks lined up to go over the bridge yesterday.
Like after 9/11 if the citizens could put the political bullshit aside, we will come together and there will be no obstacle that can't be overcome.

[Carl]

Todd,

Having been through similar I understand your outlook in wondering if it can ever come back.

If the water, beaches and weather are there, the residents that can stay will. They will repair or rebuild, businesses will come back to serve and make a dollar. Once tourists have a place to go they too will return. It will never be the same, but it will be a new normal for better or worse.

...and yes it will take time.

[SteveM]

It will come back. Over here in Abaco, we had Dorian 3 years ago.
The rate of building and restoring is much much slower here than in the USA, and this place is coming back.
The real estate values are interesting and almost predictable now that I have seen it first hand.
You will have some immediate and near term sales at low prices...along with a stall of any sales at all.
Then as time goes on there will be a surge of investors that see what is on the horizon.
All of this will happen so much faster than it did over here in The Bahamas. In the blink of an eye.
It's an opportunity to rebuild and restore and do it better in some ways than it was.

[JeremyD]

I live on the water in Tampa Bay - we evacuated when it looked like it was headed just north of the area - worse case scenario for us at that would have pumped water into Tampa Bay. By the 11:00 update on Tuesday - the NHC was predicting just south in Sarasota. I was watching the models pretty closely and there was a group that were forecasting in the panhandle and group forecasting south cap coral / Englewood area. I think NHC was splitting the difference.

Tied the bay boat to the lift and was thankful that my Bertram 31 is taking some time to get fixed in New Orleans. As it turned out - water was sucked out of Tampa Bay (again) I could not believe how far - one are recorded a negative 10 foot drop from Mean sea water level.

We had one inboard boat that sunk in my neighborhood. My guess boat settled on the bottom and pushed the struts through the bottom of the boat and as the water came back in, the bilge pumps could not keep up with the incoming.

We had debris all over the yard including about 1/2 of my neighbor's tree in my pool. Slowly getting back to normal.

Good news is that I am getting my boat shipped to me in a couple of weeks.

[Snipe]

That looks like Brett’s old boat. Glad it worked out for you.

[JeremyD]

Good eye - It is Brett's old boat - now has a factory recon cummins and a rebuilt ZF220 drive and about 50 other things

[Ironworker]

Rick

You are finishing up your boat, so basically if you did it right, it is as sound as a new boat. With a survey you should not have any issues getting coverage.

Most likely. I'm not much of a believer in insurance, especially on depreciating items.

[jackryan]

Jeremy,

I was passing by Schuberts Marine this past Weekend and saw your 31 moored to their bulkhead. She's a beauty! I tried (unsuccessfully) to send you a private message. Drop me a line if you're in New Orleans and you want to grab a beer and talk boats. My 31 is slipped at Municipal Harbor next to Southern Yacht Club.

JR
504-723-2943

[JeremyD]

Jack you were successful - she was moved this week to St. Pete -