Sen. Bob Casey works to cut insurance costs as Pennsylvanians struggle with flooding
‘It just turned everybody’s life upside down,’ Tioga County Commissioner Shane Nickerson said of the recent floods that devastated his community.
There’s an image now seared into Tioga County Commissioner Shane Nickerson’s memory: A man, shovel in hand, stands and stares at his home, destroyed during Tropical Storm Debby.
“He was just standing there, just staring at his house, and you knew what he was thinking: Where do I start? What do I do?” Nickerson said.
It’s a question that’s been posed time and again after the remnants of Hurricane Debby arrived in north-central Pennsylvania on Aug. 9, killing one man as he tried to help his neighbors and wreaking havoc on communities with some of the rural area’s worst flooding in recent years.
“We just had whole neighborhoods wiped out, I mean, just flooded,” Nickerson said. “These were the poorer communities, and it was devastating.”
“We had 4 1/2 inches of water within hours,” Nickerson continued. “And the water came in so fast, and it left as fast. By the end of the day, we went over there, and there were cars in other people’s yards. There was all this devastation. You’re like, how could this happen in that short a time? But, really, it just turned everybody’s life upside down.”
Following the storm, volunteers from the local community banded together to help. About 600 homes in Tioga County were damaged, with at least 400 of those facing significant water on the first floor, Nickerson said. Approximately 30 homes were total losses.
While there was an incredible outpouring of support, volunteers alone couldn’t accomplish the rebuilding that needed to be done, Nickerson said. The families who were affected were some of the lowest-income residents living in the borough of Westfield, and very few had flood insurance to cover the structural damage, mold and more resulting from the water in their homes.
Nickerson, a Democrat and local roofer who served as the mayor of Blossburg before becoming a county commissioner, said he would be shocked if 5% of the people affected by the storm had flood insurance. It’s simply too expensive, Nickerson said. A spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, known as PEMA, said there are 230 residential flood insurance policies provided through the federal government in Tioga County, covering roughly 1.2% of the county’s homes.
As climate change brings more flooding to Pennsylvania, residents and officials are worried about the lack of flood insurance not only in the state’s north-central communities but throughout the commonwealth. According to a report issued by the state’s Flood Insurance Premium Assistance Task Force in July, there are 3.1 million insured homes in Pennsylvania, and just 50,000 of them are covered by flood insurance.
In an attempt to make insurance more affordable, Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania in September introduced the Fair Flood Protection Act. Currently, FEMA sets flood insurance rates based on a property’s flood risk and does not take income into account. Casey’s legislation would lower the cost of flood insurance by creating a sliding scale cap for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Flood Insurance Program, based in part on income. FEMA provides the bulk of the country’s flood insurance.
Casey’s legislation would also reauthorize the National Flood Insurance Program for 10 years. On Sept. 26, President Joe Biden signed legislation that extends the program to Dec. 20. Congress now has until the end of the day on Dec. 20 to reauthorize the program.
“Throughout the commonwealth, including in my home county of Lackawanna, families’ budgets are being increasingly squeezed by the rising costs of flood insurance,” Casey said in a Sept. 25 press release. “This bill will cut fees and cap flood insurance costs to help ensure that Pennsylvanians can afford to keep their homes safe for generations to come. Hardworking homeowners should be able to protect their homes without worrying about how to pay the bills.”
Casey’s legislation would allow far more people to afford flood insurance, Nickerson said.
“This piece of legislation really will help so many rural, impoverished communities — bringing the expenses down where people can actually afford it, I think is just incredible,” Nickerson said. “I mean, we really need to do that.”
Pennsylvania is not the only state with little flood coverage. FEMA reported that 4% of homeowners across the country have flood insurance.
Many people mistakenly believe that flooding is covered by their standard home insurance, Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner Michael Humphreys wrote in the task force’s report: “After a major flooding event, homeowners without flood insurance are left to rely on federal disaster assistance, contingent upon a Presidential Disaster Declaration to activate the funds, or state disaster assistance, if any is available in their state.”
It is that mixture of federal and state aid that has brought some relief to Tioga County, Nickerson said. Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro on Aug. 9 issued a proclamation of disaster emergency for 21 counties across the state in the wake of Debby, including Tioga. That allowed PEMA workers to more quickly get out to provide assistance to residents.
In September, President Joe Biden approved a disaster declaration for Pennsylvania, which allowed storm survivors to apply for individual assistance financial aid from FEMA. People can receive up to $42,500 for housing assistance and $42,500 for other costs through the program.
So far, PEMA and FEMA have helped 416 storm survivors in Tioga County, and FEMA has provided $2.7 million in housing assistance and a little more than $900,000 for other needs to the area, according to PEMA Deputy Director of Communications Jeff Jumper.
But much more remains to be done. Some families are living on the second floor of their houses because the first floor is uninhabitable, Nickerson said. Others are residing with family and friends until they’re able to move back into their homes. Some have left the community entirely; others have closed their businesses because they can’t afford to reopen them.
Now, with the winter coming, Nickerson is worried some families will remain without heat and hot water. Residents have been trying to ensure that won’t happen: The local Lions Club, for example, donated 60 hot water tanks to those whose tanks had been destroyed in the storm. But Nickerson knows they haven’t been able to get to everyone who needs help. Residents have also raised about $300,000 through the Tioga County Partnership for Community Health, and Nickerson hopes they’ll be able to support some of the people who have slipped through the cracks with those funds before the cold sets in.
And then there’s the prospect of another storm.
“If this last storm that came up through the Gulf would have tracked a little different and hit Westfield again, everything we did in the last eight weeks would be for nothing because it would have got flooded again,” Nickerson said on Oct. 4, before Hurricane Milton. “It’s going to happen again. There’s no doubt in my mind. I hope it doesn’t, but, honestly, it’s going to.”
By then, Nickerson hopes, they’ll have gotten federal or state help clearing out the community’s waterways that are now blocked by debris so the flooding isn’t worse the next time around. He also hopes his community stays on FEMA’s radar as the agency faces the destruction left by Hurricanes Milton and Helene in the southeastern United States.
“Now, after this flood and all the devastation down south, a lot of the residents are saying, We’re worried we’re going to be forgotten about,” Nickerson said.
Tioga County residents impacted by Tropical Storm Debby have until Nov. 12 to apply for assistance from FEMA. For more information, you can call 1-800-621-3362 or visit FEMA’s website. Individuals can receive help on their applications and connect with other resources at FEMA’s disaster recovery center, located inside the Valley Christian Church at 146 Maple St. in Westfield.