News showed I75 at a standstill, there are parts that are unpassable (but they didn't show what that meant, bad asphalt or missing bridge?)

While I get that its a guessing game for the TV weathermen, just remember if they are wrong then its just a false alarm, if they are right then its total devastation! This video clearly shows 15 ft surge and how it can wash away a whole house:
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With ongoing nationwide shortages of many building materials and lack of tradesmen reconstruction will be a long haul.

But a 1-2 hour drive away gets you into major cities that were unaffected (Tampa/Fort Lauderdale/MIami).so the materials might be sourced early on if you just need something for a smaller job. Tradesmen will show up in droves, winter is coming in a lot of places so guys will pack up and head to Florida to try to make some money for the winter......again for smaller jobs like roofs not total ground up rebuilds. Among those tradesman will be plenty of scammers.

A guy with a skidsteer, a few chainsaws and a decent supply of fuel could make a ton of money in the next few weeks just clearing debris.

WOW just WOW.........​​​​​​​

A friend lives in the red circle, that is maybe 20 miles up river.

they went from a dry house to 4 foot of water in about 30 min.




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It's going to more than a year. Irma took us around 2 years to get through the bulk.

The field team should be there for 4-6 months just getting 1st inspections done. Then it will prob slow to where they are called in a lot for 2nd inspections as well.

there will be hundreds of engineers inspecting losses as if a home was flooded it will only be paid by your homeowners for the storm (non flood) damage and they will be there to make those inspections .

It is going to be a long and ****ed up process. Oir goal right now is to get initial payments out ASAP to those that we can.

For tarping and other mitigation services on Sanibel we have to send teams via ferry servuxe

Having spent 10 years repairing a 3 story 4000 sq foot on stilts 40 year old Florida home on the beach in south seas I can tell you repairs are a ***** compared to building new.

My dad was a building contractor and I grew up building 5000’sq foot homes and when the economy tanked in 80 I asked my dad about doing remodels and he said it simply wasn’t worth the headaches.
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I kidded the Swiss billionaire that owned the house on 350 feet of frontage that fixing his house was like repairing an old wood boat. It never ends.

I billed him at 120 an hour 10 years ago and he was more than happy to pay anything to have some Quality repairs done way out on Captiva.

The work was endless on the 2 houses but I finally bailed on him after 10 years after the president of GM financial bought the house next door and started major remodeling and the county was all over.

I was not a licensed contractor and didn’t want to get busted and didn’t want to be a contractor as o hated houses growing up in the business but I got sucked in by the how nice the guy was and every little repair was a major repair once you pulled back the skin.

And every Ilegal that was a tomato picker yesterday is a skilled carpenter today.


The captiva beach house I mentioned in the previous post got hit by Charlie before I went to work for the guy.

Once I started working on the house 4 years later I dove into the rotten wood siding .

after Wilma the owner had spent 250 thousand in hurricane patio doors and windows.

They had 16 x10 foot tall 1000 pound sliders secured to the opening with screws that were barely an inch into the studs as they didn’t rebuck in the frames, there was 2 inches between the doors and the frame all shimmed out

I ended up pulling and reframing 9 big patio doors and around 15 windows. Just a disaster every previous repair was.