Hurricane Michael JetboatPilot Employees Displaced

[Steve Risley]

Donated and purchased a JetBoatPilot gift card. Wishing the best for everyone and know from first hand experience (Hurricane Irma) that every little bit helps.

 

[JetBoatPilot]

Donated and purchased a JetBoatPilot gift card. Wishing the best for everyone and know from first hand experience (Hurricane Irma) that every little bit helps.

Thank you so much!

 

[Roger.P]

Done! Hurricanes aren't a joke here in Florida...

 

[biglar155]

Donated. Also praying for everyone involved.

My Upper Peninsula home-town just went through something similar with severe flooding on Father's Day. It was bad enough that the small area actually made national news - for a brief 10-seconds.

I know this: If you've never had to deal with this kind of thing (which we never did), you envision everyone being helped out by all of these agency's that are in place for this sort of thing. You picture nothing but "a-holes and elbows" that the news shows us and people being back on their feet and in their homes by the end of the new cycle. That's not quite the way it works.

The reality is that after the MAIN roads have been opened and the high-population-density areas have had power and water restored, that army of people and equipment slowly fades away and the residents are left to somehow clean up the mess left behind.

Please understand: I mean no disrespect at all to the army of volunteers and rescue workers that mobilize to help people get through the initial impact of these events. Without them things would be even worse - and many more lives would be lost for want of aid.

The simple fact of the matter is that those volunteers can only stay so long - they have to get back to their real jobs to support their own families. When the dust settles, there are a lot of residents left standing there looking at everything from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage wondering how they are going to get back to "the way it was." Some of those folks won't be covered by insurance. Some will have to fight their insurance for a LONG time to get their claims paid - with loan interest piling up. Many - particularly those on fixed incomes - will simply have to walk away from it and deal with bankruptcy.

It's a sad state of affairs and you just don't realize how stressful it is until you've been there.

 

[mdchachi]

Donated and purchased a JetBoatPilot gift card. Wishing the best for everyone and know from first hand experience (Hurricane Irma) that every little bit helps.

The email says there is a gift certificate on the web site to help with cash flow but I can't see it for the life of me. Can somebody post the link here?

 

[afsigma21]

https://jetboatpilot.com/products/jetboatpilot-gift-certificate?utm_source=JetBoatPilot+Oct+2018+Hurricane+Notification+2&utm_campaign=Email&utm_medium=email

 

[MidnightRider]

Done. You all out there are in our thoughts and prayers.

 

[Trevor Shipman]

Any update on how the money raised has gone to help those in need?

 

[JetBoatPilot]

So far I can tell you that those that got the money were very thrilled to have it! They were not expecting anything and when we surprised them with it they were elated.

Most have not found homes yet. They are living in temporary housing situations like condos or friends. Housing is rare here and when it does come available the price is higher than it should be. All in all the money raised was a huge blessing to these guys and gals and they were very grateful !!!!

Thank you to you and others that gave! It was a huge shot in the arm for those that lost so much!!!!

 

[Speedling]

What's the status here? Saw some recent Facebook photos with some visitors and they showed a lot of carnage yet. How are you and yours? Your church and staff and neighbors etc?

 

[JetBoatPilot]

What's the status here? Saw some recent Facebook photos with some visitors and they showed a lot of carnage yet. How are you and yours? Your church and staff and neighbors etc?

All is well as far as staff goes. They are all recovering as well as they are able and we're keeping them working. The city is a completely different story. When the news media left, everyone forgot about little old Panama City. The Politicians came around saying they were going to send help and so far none of any real significance has showed up. We are see school superintendents holding news conferences stating that if they don't get funding from the FEDS and State level they will have to lay off 600 more people in 60 days.

And that is just the start of it. We lost 25% of our work force. Everyone seems to be working and there are severe shortages everywhere. Restaurants are closing early because they can't help the customers they have for lack of help.

It is going to take some time for this town to rebound but we know that it will and when it does it will be better than we had before! That is what my Pastor has been preaching almost every Sunday since the storm. More than we had before!

 

[waternutt]

I will pile on to Will's comments. Everyone's individual recovery story is different. Some folks had minimal damage and not too much impact to their homes/businesses. Others lost everything and are living in tents still 6+ months after the storm.

The city is slowly making progress but is still a mess in my opinion. Some businesses have re-opened. Others will never open again. The loss of population that Will mentioned has many second and third order effects. Fortunately, Panama City Beach came through the storm ok, but unfortunately everyone sees the tourism $$$ still coming in over there and has forgotten about the rest of the area.

It has been 198 and counting since the storm with no federal disaster relief bill. For comparison, the bill for Hurricane Katrina was passed in 19 days post-storm. Most municipalities have a debris clean up bill is larger than their annual budget. We have about 7-8x the amount of debris in a few counties than Hurricane Irma did in 54-ish counties in 2017 as it went up the entire Florida peninsula.

A couple other stats...
4th strongest storm to ever make U.S. landfall in terms of wind speed (3rd by pressure)
Estimated $25 billion in damage

What many forget is how quickly this storm built up. It was a tropical depression on 7 Oct, hurricane strength on 8 Oct, major hurricane on 9 Oct, landfall as a Category 5 on 10 Oct. That is just insane how quickly it strengthened.

Sorry for the rant. I will get off the soapbox. It can be very frustrating dealing with this every day and hearing how everyone is struggling in some fashion. Don't even get me started on insurance companies.

 

[Julian]

Hurricane Matthew victims in NC are only now getting FEMA $ since the hurricane hit in 2016
Puerto Rico has received $3.7B of the $40B approved after sustaining $90B in damages in 2017 from Maria.
NC Hurricane Florence victims are still waiting.

Its a mess!

I've donated and ordered Seadek kits! Need to install the bow kit this weekend!

 

[Cambo]

It has been 198 and counting since the storm with no federal disaster relief bill. For comparison, the bill for Hurricane Katrina was passed in 19 days post-storm. Most municipalities have a debris clean up bill is larger than their annual budget. We have about 7-8x the amount of debris in a few counties than Hurricane Irma did in 54-ish counties in 2017 as it went up the entire Florida peninsula.

A couple other stats...
4th strongest storm to ever make U.S. landfall in terms of wind speed (3rd by pressure)
Estimated $25 billion in damage

What many forget is how quickly this storm built up. It was a tropical depression on 7 Oct, hurricane strength on 8 Oct, major hurricane on 9 Oct, landfall as a Category 5 on 10 Oct. That is just insane how quickly it strengthened.

Sorry for the rant. I will get off the soapbox. It can be very frustrating dealing with this every day and hearing how everyone is struggling in some fashion. Don't even get me started on insurance companies.

So the buzz from hurricane Sandy was after Katrina hit New Orleans there was massive money flowing to help but it went into pockets of greedy people and didn't end up were it should have so now the money flow is watched like a hawk a few bad apples wreck it for everyone . I know first hand what these storms do and the financial mess

Some Stats on Sandy hope you are back to normal as soon as possible . The last paragraph is crazy NY city suing oil companies

•••
By Kimberly Amadeo
Updated September 22, 2018

Hurricane Sandy hit New Jersey on October 29, 2012. It did $70.2 billion in economic damage. This figure has been adjusted for inflation. It was the fourth-worst storm in U.S. history. It had been a Category 3 storm. But by the time it made landfall, it was downgraded to a tropical storm.

The storm damaged or destroyed at least 650,000 homes, and 8 million customers lost power. Storm surges were massive: 8 1/2 feet higher than normal at Sandy Hook, New Jersey and 12 1/2 feet at Kings Point, Long Island.

Sandy closed the New York Stock Exchange for the first time in 27 years since Hurricane Gloria. Even the electronic exchanges, based in New Jersey, were closed so as not to endanger the workers there. The exchanges were also closed on Tuesday, the first two-day closure due to weather since 1888.

On January 10, 2018, New York City sued the major oil companies for their role in damages brought by Hurricane Sandy. It seeks to compensate the city for its costs related to climate change. It claims the companies covered-up the role their product had on global warming. The increased damage from hurricanes is one consequence of higher ocean temperatures.