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One year after Hurricane Sandy, homes in Breezy Point, NY, destroyed by fire during the storm are in different phases in the reconstruction process. Photo Courtesy of FEMA.

Natural disasters are unpredictable and can happen at any time. They often catch homeowners off-guard and unprepared to provide the legal documentation for their home required to begin the reconstruction process. If you are a local agency, NGO, or other agency tasked with preparing your community for natural disasters, it’s important to provide homeowners with information on the reconstruction process and necessary documentation before a disaster hits so they can return to their homes as quickly and safely as possible.

“A first step towards being prepared is to be informed of your home’s characteristics,” explains IBTS Build it Back (BiB) Program Expeditor Samantha Ruotolo, who has worked as the “middle-man” between architects and dozens of homeowners in the BiB program to streamline the construction permit process. “This includes the flood zone area, fire district, or other natural disaster classifications for the home.”

To help homeowners stay informed on their home’s characteristics, consider holding public forums, issuing flyers and using other public service announcements (PSAs) to let homeowners know why this information is important and where to find it.

In most jurisdictions, information on home natural disaster classifications can be easily found on the local building department’s website. Flood zone boundaries can also be found by searching for the home’s address or county using FEMA’s flood zone map. Consider providing links to both of these sources on your agency’s website.

This information will be important for homeowners to have on-hand during a natural disaster to meet requirements for both short- and long-term federal disaster recovery programs, such as FEMA Individual Assistance (IA) and CDBG-DR funding, but it’s especially important that they be informed of this before any disaster strikes to ensure they have the proper insurance coverage.

Homeowner’s Insurance

“It’s critical that homeowners know the details of their insurance coverage,” Ruotolo says. “Homeowner’s insurance might cover water damage from something like a sewer main break, but it typically will not cover damage from flood water.”

Many homeowners don’t realize their homeowner’s insurance doesn’t cover flood damage until after their home has been flooded. This can have significant impacts on the speed and success of post-disaster reconstruction. In communities that participate in FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), homeowners in a high-risk flood zone are required to have flood insurance. However if your jurisdiction is prone to flooding, it’s important to encourage all residents to check the parameters of their homeowner’s insurance coverage and purchase flood insurance if necessary. Flood insurance is a marginal investment for homeowners to make compared to the cost of repairing or replacing a flooded, uninsured home. Unlike FEMA Individual Assistance (IA), flood insurance claims can be made even if a presidential disaster declaration is not made.

In addition to having proper insurance coverage, it’s also crucial that homeowner’s have their insurance agents’ contact information available after a disaster. The FEMA individual assistance application process cannot move forward until homeowners have reported damage to their insurance companies. To help expedite the FEMA Individual Assistance (IA) process for residents, advise homeowners to have their flood and homeowner insurance agents’ contact information on-hand.

Recommend that homeowners store their agent’s phone number in their cell phone, and keep a written copy with their insurance policy. When informing citizens of an evacuation, be sure to include a notification for homeowners to bring this information with them. Even if homeowners think they have it memorized, it can be difficult to remember under duress in the chaotic aftermath of a disaster.

Legal Documentation for your Home

Although most homeowners are educated on the importance of maintaining and updating legal documentation pertaining to their home, many homeowners are unaware of the important role these documents play in the post-disaster reconstruction process.

Even if your agency is not directly involved with the CDBG-DR process, you may want to consider incorporating this information into your disaster preparedness public outreach material or coordinating with your local building department to answer homeowner questions.

Public outreach material should focus on advising homeowners to keep hard copies of legal documents pertaining to their home in a location that can be easily accessed during an emergency. This includes the certificate of occupancy for the home, any homeowner’s or weather-specific insurance policies, and the most recent copy of the home appraisal.

“All legal documents pertaining to the home should be kept in a waterproof location,” recommends Ruotolo. “Having a digital copy of the home’s certificate of occupancy, as well as a hard copy, will be significant in expediting the paperwork process because it specifies what each floor of the house is designated for. This results in faster post-disaster relief and construction times.”

This is especially important in cities and urban areas, where many homeowners rent portions of their home. “If part of a home is rented out and provides a source of income,” explains Ruotolo, “having a copy your certificate of occupancy and plans approved by the local building department will demonstrate the legality of that space and ensure that the space can remain as part of the home.”

If the homeowner can’t locate paperwork for their home, they’ll likely experience significant delays in the rebuilding process. Before the project can move forward, the local building department will have to search their own records to find the most recent documentation. The reconstruction project will still move forward once the paperwork is located, but homeowner’s should be made aware that they may not be able to use spaces in their home, such as rental units, as they were used pre-storm.

Even with proper documentation, alterations to homes post-disaster may be inevitable. It’s important to be sensitive to homeowner’s emotions during this time – homes hold sentimental value and it can be difficult for homeowners to accept that their homes may not return to their pre-disaster state.

After Hurricane Sandy, for example, FEMA’s updated flood zone elevation standards required that many damaged homes be raised. As a result, the basement or first floor of many homes became uninhabitable. For many, this caused not just a decrease in home value, but also a significant loss of income for residents who could no longer rent portions of their home. As a result, many homeowners refused to approve the architect’s plans for their home, further delaying the reconstruction process. It’s important to set consistent, realistic expectations about the rebuilding process as soon as the road to recovery begins.

Regardless of your role in community disaster preparedness efforts, it’s important to remind homeowners to take simple actions — like maintaining an updated file of legal documents pertaining to their home — before any threat of severe weather is on the horizon. Mundane tasks like this can save residents and the municipality time, money, and added stress that can come with obstacles that are entirely preventable in the home rebuilding process.