New Podcast: Top Ten Tips for Disaster Safety in 2021

For our latest podcast, we turned the tables. John Zarrella, JZ Media, former CNN Correspondent, and one of our valued board advisors hosted me to talk about our top ten affordable, simple, do-it-yourself (DIY) ways to strengthen your home as the new year begins. I hope you find these useful and be on the lookout as John will be back with us to guest host again soon.

Topics Include:

  • About Leslie (1:53)
  • Know your risk (usually flooding) by identifying disaster history in your community (8:24)
  • Earthquake: Fire following shaking, turn on/off gas valve by buying affordable wrench (9:45)
  • Flood: Wherever it rains, it can flood; buying flood insurance policy early is essential (12:39)
  • Hurricane: Make soffit covers tight, well-installed, and reinforced using caulking/sealant (16:32)
  • Tornado: Build or buy an affordable safe room or shelter for near-absolute protection (22:05)
  • Wildfire: Create defensible space around your home by clearing out/getting rid of debris (25:06)
  • Wildfire/Flood: Clean gutters to move water using safe, easy to use, affordable tools (28:44)
  • Fire: Create, document, digitally store, and update home inventory to file an insurance claim (31:05)
  • Blizzard: Use inexpensive foam, dome, and drip insulation to prevent pipes from freezing (29:23)
  • Building Code Data: Identify building codes to know how your home will perform in perils (34:26)

I hope you enjoy this podcast episode and don’t forget to subscribe, rate, share, and provide a review on iTunes. Don’t miss these helpful resources and links too:

Top Ten Tips for Disaster Safety in 2021
The National Flood Insurance Program: FloodSmart
Strengthen Your Soffits
No Code. No Confidence. – Insepct2Protect.org
Leslie Chapman-Henderson
Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH)
#HurricaneStrong 
FLASH Videos

Just in case you missed our previous Strong Homes, Safe Families! episodes:

  1. #HurricaneStrong and the 2020 Season feat. National Hurricane Center Director Ken Graham
  2. The Scoop on Hurricane Shutters feat. Tim Robinson, Managing Partner of Global Protection Products and President of the International Hurricane Protection Association
  3. Skills + Supplies Today = Safety and Survival Tomorrow feat. Sean Reilly, District Manager for Lowe’s along North and South Carolina coast-between Myrtle Beach and Morehead City
  4. #HurricaneStrong Home Hacks that Save Time and Money feat. Bill Ferimer, Lowe’s Store Manager in Wilmington, North Carolina
  5. Have an Insurance Checkup and Make Your Policy #HurricaneStrong feat. Amanda Chase, State Farm Insurance Agent in Winter Park, Florida
  6. Take Steps Today for a Smooth Hurricane Claim Process Tomorrow feat. Elizabeth Gulick, VP of Claims Operations for USAA
  7. Dr. Anne Cope on Science That Makes Us #HurricaneStrong feat. Anne Cope, Ph.D., PE, Chief Engineer at the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS)
  8. Ready, Set, ShakeOut! Feat. Mark Benthien, Director of Communication, Education, and Outreach at the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC)
  9. Ending the Season #HurricaneStrong, a Conversation with Dr. Rick Knabb, On-Air Hurricane Expert and Tropical Program Manager for The Weather Channel
  10. Building Codes Save Study with FEMA’s Ed Laatsch, Director – Safety, Planning, and Building Science Division of the Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration (FIMA), Risk Management Directorate – Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

New Podcast: Have an Insurance Checkup and Make Your Policy #HurricaneStrong

Are you in the dark about what your insurance policy will provide after a hurricane? Did you know that you may have coverage for food that spoils when the power fails even if your home isn’t damaged? Moreover, did you know that food spoilage coverage is often deductible-free?

Are you aware that a special, separate policy is required to cover flood? Did you know that flood policies have a 30-day waiting period? Will your coverage limits provide enough to repair and rebuild if your home is damaged?

These are the kinds of questions that you can answer during an annual insurance checkup to keep your policy current and keep you in the know before hurricanes strike.

Amanda Chase

Amanda Chase, State Farm Agent

This week’s Strong Homes, Safe Families! podcast interview and checklist (click here) focus on the insurance checkup or annual review—your way to make your policy #HurricaneStrong. My expert guest for this podcast is Amanda Chase, a State Farm insurance agent in Winter Park, Florida.

Topics Include:

  • Financial Security: Having the resources to repair and recover from hurricanes
  • Insurance Checkup: Review policies, obtain advice on coverage and updates
  • Hurricane Deductibles: How they work, when they kick in
  • Understand Exclusions and Eliminate Surprises: What a policy pays for (and doesn’t)
  • Capitalize on Building Codes: Save money on insurance with discounts for good building practices, safety features and more
  • Consumer Survey and COVID-19: More ready to get prepared to shelter at home safely
  • Power Outage Coverage: Reimbursement for loss of use and food spoilage
  • Control Uncontrollables: Know answers to questions to not fear the unknown

Click here to listen to this week’s Strong Homes, Safe Families! podcast episode, and don’t forget to subscribe, rate, share, and provide a review on iTunes. Learn more about insurance and mitigation by downloading A Homeowners Insurance Guide to Natural Disasters or emailing your question to info@flash.org.

Live from the National Hurricane Center – Tackling the Prep Paradox

If everything goes as planned, I’ll be at the National Hurricane Center in Miami tomorrow for a Satellite Media Tour with Director Dr. Rick Knabb. We’ll connect live with television, radio and online reporters, editors, correspondents and anchors through satellite link-ups. And they will, in turn, remind their audiences about the need to get ready now for flooding, high winds, hurricanes, and storm surge. We’ll be starting our 20 or so interviews before sunrise, including several segments with The Weather Channel. The “Tour” will last for about four hours.

We use media tours when the weather is quiet as they are a good way to get the public’s attention, but tomorrow should be even more effective because of the recent active tropical weather. Storms like BERTHA, ISELLE, and JULIO get the public’s attention because they showcase a pattern that plays out the same way each time. Those in the expected strike zone, (last week it was Hawaii), join in the frenzied, last-minute rush to the grocery and hardware stores to secure basic necessities while the rest of the world watches to see if they get hit by the hurricane.

This is the paradox that those of us in the disaster safety movement live with: we enjoy people’s rapt attention when storms brew, but often the public focus comes just as the window closes on the opportunity to mitigate storm effects. By the time they believe it can happen to them, it’s often too late to act on beneficial protections like flood insurance.

Somehow, many still don’t realize that nearly all homeowners insurance excludes flood damage, and that flood insurance must be in place 30 days before an incident. Even with our modern hurricane forecasting skills, we do not get a month of lead time before a specific landfall.

I’ve been thinking about this ongoing contradiction. Having people’s attention during a storm or impending disaster can save lives if they heed our program messages such as “Turn Around, Don’t Drown.” However, if they only focus on disaster preparation when trouble is impending, they are likely to suffer unnecessarily.

We know this because for more than three decades, in storm after storm, people have shared their regrets with us after the fact. They regret that lack of planning caused fear and stress for their kids. They regret scrambling for scarce supplies because of procrastination. As they clean up their water-logged homes, they regret that they missed out on simple home protection preps like boarding up, caulking windows, cleaning gutters, trimming overhanging limbs or even changing water runoff patterns in the yard.

They remember for years about how miserable it was to endure a power outage without basics like ice, water, or even peanut butter and jelly, never mind a generator or adequate fuel to run it. And they are surprised and frustrated when they lose power even though they were well outside the storm-impacted area. These regrets are compounded with health and welfare problems when the power goes out in extreme heat like Miami after Hurricane Andrew or winter cold like the Northeast after Superstorm Sandy.

We will never miss an opportunity to leverage the public’s attention with safety and prevention messages when we battle complacency directly ahead of a hurricane. But while the weather is peaceful, we will “tour” via satellite hoping to inspire and quoting Ben Franklin along the way, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”