Joyce Timmons - Hurricane Michael Damage
Donation protected
This the response that I submitted for my 88 year old mother who was denied FEMA assistance on 11/25/2018. She is currently without heat / air conditioning and without running water due to damage suffered to her home from Hurricane Michael. I am raising this money for my 88 year old mother who is currently without heat / air conditioning and running water. My name is Chet Timmons and I am trying to get her house fixed as FEMA has denied her claim for assistance and I do not know where else to go to get her the necessities that she needs. The money donated for her cause will be used to get her water pump and water conditioning system fixed and purchase a new air conditioner for her house. The attached photo is of her air conditioning unit and water pump system as it currently sits.
FEMA
PO BOX 10055
Hyattsville, MD 20782-8055
Attention: Appeals Officer
To Whom it May Concern:
I am writing this letter on behalf of Joyce Terrell Timmons and I am her son, Chester L Timmons Jr. and I am relaying our and mainly her feelings towards your Assistance Not Approved letter dated November 25, 2018.
My name is Joyce Terrell Timmons and I suffered catastrophic damage to my home due to the raging impact of Hurricane Michael. Let me say that I am a retired attorney with over 43 years of legal experience and have been a part of the Franklin County community for over 40 plus years and have never suffered such damage during any of the past hurricanes that have hit our shores. I am also 88 years old and have seen a variety of catastrophic events in my day, but personally none worse than this. Nor have I ever felt more abandoned by my country during this time of need. I have done my part for this country, never breaking its laws, paying and filing my taxes throughout the years in a timely manner, and have had two husbands who served their country during World War II, one of them being shot four times during the invasion of Normandy, with Chester Lewis Timmons Sr. later becoming 100% disabled for those wounds he received in that battle.
My claim for assistance was denied in three parts: 1) Ineligible – Will not relocate, 2) Ineligible – Noncompliant with Flood Insurance Requirement, and 3) Ineligible – Noncompliant with Flood Insurance Requirement. Following is a list of why we feel that your determination letter is not worth the paper it is printed on and would be great for fertilizing an entire field of corn.
As to point (1) Ineligible – Will not relocate; no one has ever asked me if I was willing to relocate and if faced with the prospects of living through winters and summers in a house without heat or air conditioning, or without the prospects of running water, I would reluctantly accept an offer for a different living location. Have you ever felt the shame associated with not being able to take a bath or wash one’s clothes or do your dishes without heating water from a five gallon office cooler jug? This is something that wears on you every day beating you down into a feeling of hopelessness and despair. Or have you ever had the experience of being extremely cold and only being able to heat your house with space heaters? Or have you ever been so hot that the sweat pours down your back as you sit in a sweat soaked chair, only being able to cool yourself down with several inadequate fans. Frankly you at FEMA should be ashamed that you would allow such a situation to exist. So, if I am forced to accept the prospects of relocating I guess it would depend on the type of living situation offered.
As to point (2) and point (3) Ineligible – Non-compliant with Flood Insurance Requirement – the flood insurance requirement is a tactic that FEMA and the insurance companies employ to take advantage of individuals living near the water. The insurance companies and FEMA require homeowners to purchase flood insurance not to allay the costs associated with storm damage, but as payola to corrupt insurance companies and corrupt politicians. The insurance PAC (political action committees and insurance special interests) is one of the richest PACs found on K Street and provides politicians with an unlimited source of campaign contributions. While requiring homeowners living next to the water to purchase flood insurance, politicians and insurance companies know that they will hardly ever have to pay claims for hurricane damage because it is easy to skew the damage data in their favor. If one does not have flood insurance, FEMA simply denies the claim for assistance as you did in my case and if one does have flood insurance the insurance companies deny the claims by saying that the damage was not due to flood but was due to wind damage. In this situation, damage was not due to flood conditions because Hurricane Michael was a fast moving storm that did not sit over the coast for days soaking the area with excessive rains that would cause flood damage. Most of the damage associated with this storm was due to wind because there were accounts based on meteorological wind measuring devices that recorded gusts above the 200 mph range which pushed the waves onto the shore and created a storm surge in excess of ten feet in my mother’s particular location. If you look at the attached photos you will see siding blown off of her house well above the storm surge level that was blown off of the house by wind and not by storm surge or by flood. So, in this situation if my mother had paid for flood insurance the insurance companies would have added to their significant coffers and would not have paid because they would have stated that the damage was not due to flood damage. So, how does FEMA not pay a claim to my mother because the damage was due to excessive wind? This is a dirty and rigged game you are playing and your organization should be ashamed of denying my mother assistance for the excessive damage that was done to her house and her property. Ashamed I say. How can any agency associated almost daily with human suffering not see the pain and suffering in my mother’s case?
Furthermore, the cost associated with flood insurance coverage in this area is in the $8,000 a year range and would knock the heck out of my mother’s fixed income of $12,000 per year. So, the Federal government and FEMA require her to purchase such an expensive insurance policy rather than purchase the creature comforts of food, medicine, and electricity. Maybe she should have purchased this insurance policy so that the CEO of an insurance company could receive their 8 figure bonus. I guess she should have done this and changed her daily diet to Alpo or some other inexpensive dog food rather than purchase medicine or pay for electricity.
So, yes, my mother is appealing your ineligibility claim and requests that you send another inspector out to inspect the damage that was obviously caused by wind and not flood. In addition, we would like to make a humanitarian FEMA claim and would like you to price flood insurance policies in this area and determine whether or not my mother on fixed income could afford such a prohibitive insurance policy. FEMA stands for Federal Emergency Management Association and should live up to the Emergency part of your agency’s name and deliver emergency assistance to a valued member of this society. To give you the incentive to do the right thing in this situation, I am going to post this letter, your ineligibility determination letter, and the photos of the damage incurred by my mother from Hurricane Michael to every politician, news agency, newspaper, and social media forum that I can think of in an effort to shame you into action rather than inaction.
I must say shame on you, FEMA, and shame on us as a society if we allow this level of economic and social injustice to endure.
Sincerely yours,
Joyce Terrell Timmons
FEMA
PO BOX 10055
Hyattsville, MD 20782-8055
Attention: Appeals Officer
To Whom it May Concern:
I am writing this letter on behalf of Joyce Terrell Timmons and I am her son, Chester L Timmons Jr. and I am relaying our and mainly her feelings towards your Assistance Not Approved letter dated November 25, 2018.
My name is Joyce Terrell Timmons and I suffered catastrophic damage to my home due to the raging impact of Hurricane Michael. Let me say that I am a retired attorney with over 43 years of legal experience and have been a part of the Franklin County community for over 40 plus years and have never suffered such damage during any of the past hurricanes that have hit our shores. I am also 88 years old and have seen a variety of catastrophic events in my day, but personally none worse than this. Nor have I ever felt more abandoned by my country during this time of need. I have done my part for this country, never breaking its laws, paying and filing my taxes throughout the years in a timely manner, and have had two husbands who served their country during World War II, one of them being shot four times during the invasion of Normandy, with Chester Lewis Timmons Sr. later becoming 100% disabled for those wounds he received in that battle.
My claim for assistance was denied in three parts: 1) Ineligible – Will not relocate, 2) Ineligible – Noncompliant with Flood Insurance Requirement, and 3) Ineligible – Noncompliant with Flood Insurance Requirement. Following is a list of why we feel that your determination letter is not worth the paper it is printed on and would be great for fertilizing an entire field of corn.
As to point (1) Ineligible – Will not relocate; no one has ever asked me if I was willing to relocate and if faced with the prospects of living through winters and summers in a house without heat or air conditioning, or without the prospects of running water, I would reluctantly accept an offer for a different living location. Have you ever felt the shame associated with not being able to take a bath or wash one’s clothes or do your dishes without heating water from a five gallon office cooler jug? This is something that wears on you every day beating you down into a feeling of hopelessness and despair. Or have you ever had the experience of being extremely cold and only being able to heat your house with space heaters? Or have you ever been so hot that the sweat pours down your back as you sit in a sweat soaked chair, only being able to cool yourself down with several inadequate fans. Frankly you at FEMA should be ashamed that you would allow such a situation to exist. So, if I am forced to accept the prospects of relocating I guess it would depend on the type of living situation offered.
As to point (2) and point (3) Ineligible – Non-compliant with Flood Insurance Requirement – the flood insurance requirement is a tactic that FEMA and the insurance companies employ to take advantage of individuals living near the water. The insurance companies and FEMA require homeowners to purchase flood insurance not to allay the costs associated with storm damage, but as payola to corrupt insurance companies and corrupt politicians. The insurance PAC (political action committees and insurance special interests) is one of the richest PACs found on K Street and provides politicians with an unlimited source of campaign contributions. While requiring homeowners living next to the water to purchase flood insurance, politicians and insurance companies know that they will hardly ever have to pay claims for hurricane damage because it is easy to skew the damage data in their favor. If one does not have flood insurance, FEMA simply denies the claim for assistance as you did in my case and if one does have flood insurance the insurance companies deny the claims by saying that the damage was not due to flood but was due to wind damage. In this situation, damage was not due to flood conditions because Hurricane Michael was a fast moving storm that did not sit over the coast for days soaking the area with excessive rains that would cause flood damage. Most of the damage associated with this storm was due to wind because there were accounts based on meteorological wind measuring devices that recorded gusts above the 200 mph range which pushed the waves onto the shore and created a storm surge in excess of ten feet in my mother’s particular location. If you look at the attached photos you will see siding blown off of her house well above the storm surge level that was blown off of the house by wind and not by storm surge or by flood. So, in this situation if my mother had paid for flood insurance the insurance companies would have added to their significant coffers and would not have paid because they would have stated that the damage was not due to flood damage. So, how does FEMA not pay a claim to my mother because the damage was due to excessive wind? This is a dirty and rigged game you are playing and your organization should be ashamed of denying my mother assistance for the excessive damage that was done to her house and her property. Ashamed I say. How can any agency associated almost daily with human suffering not see the pain and suffering in my mother’s case?
Furthermore, the cost associated with flood insurance coverage in this area is in the $8,000 a year range and would knock the heck out of my mother’s fixed income of $12,000 per year. So, the Federal government and FEMA require her to purchase such an expensive insurance policy rather than purchase the creature comforts of food, medicine, and electricity. Maybe she should have purchased this insurance policy so that the CEO of an insurance company could receive their 8 figure bonus. I guess she should have done this and changed her daily diet to Alpo or some other inexpensive dog food rather than purchase medicine or pay for electricity.
So, yes, my mother is appealing your ineligibility claim and requests that you send another inspector out to inspect the damage that was obviously caused by wind and not flood. In addition, we would like to make a humanitarian FEMA claim and would like you to price flood insurance policies in this area and determine whether or not my mother on fixed income could afford such a prohibitive insurance policy. FEMA stands for Federal Emergency Management Association and should live up to the Emergency part of your agency’s name and deliver emergency assistance to a valued member of this society. To give you the incentive to do the right thing in this situation, I am going to post this letter, your ineligibility determination letter, and the photos of the damage incurred by my mother from Hurricane Michael to every politician, news agency, newspaper, and social media forum that I can think of in an effort to shame you into action rather than inaction.
I must say shame on you, FEMA, and shame on us as a society if we allow this level of economic and social injustice to endure.
Sincerely yours,
Joyce Terrell Timmons
Organizer
Chet Timmons
Organizer
Eastpoint, FL
