Prepared for the Unexpected?

Yes....that is a rooftop.






Sorry for the lack of posts this week. It has been quite surreal here with all the damage and devastation our area suffered from the flooding last weekend. I'm sure you seen pictures. It is so very sad...so many people have lost everything including some who lost loved ones in the rising floodwaters. And yes, the Titans football stadium looked more like an Olympic swimming pool, the grandeur of the Opryland Hotel was reduced to resembling something from a scene in the Titanic. But real people with kids and jobs and mortgages have lost their homes, their cars, virtually everything they own. They are calling this a 100, 500 or 1000 year flood depending on what news source you listen to. We just don't have floods here! Tornadoes-- yes, floods - NO! In fact, in a city with almost 600,000 people only 6,000 had flood insurance. Which means much of this is a total loss. FEMA will help, but they have low limits on the dollar amount of help they can provide. I'm expecting another wave of foreclosures in our city as people decide it's better to walk away since they will not be able to afford to restore their homes to a habitable state and replace everything they need to function.

As for us, the damage was minimal. We had about an inch of water in our lowest level so we’re replacing carpet and flooring in our rec room, laundry room and one bathroom. Here is a picture of all we lost. Nothing compared to many. Unexpected? Unplanned? Certainly, but we’ll use some savings and tighten the budget even further the next few months to get it done.

But for some of my "neighbors", there was no way to prepare for a catastrophe that no one predicted, no one could have imagined. It just goes to show, as hard as you try, no matter what the financial gurus say, you can not plan for every emergency.

Editing to add a link to more pictures of the devastation: Click Here