I’ve been trying to decide if we should purchase flood insurance for our house for this spring’s incoming flood. It is around $300/year (paid upfront) but it doesn’t kick in for 30 days. The nasty flood of 1997 that took out the entire town started breaking through the levies around April 18th. That is around a month away.  After that flood, $300,000,000+ was spent on a huge permanent dike and increased levies. They are supposed to handle up to around 60 feet. This had me pretty comfortable. That is, until I read an article in the paper this morning where they are talking about potentially adding sandbags to the top of it. As of right now, there is a 2% chance of the river breaking 60ft. Small chance, until you consider the talk of a potential major storm next week that could make that number jump up, maybe to a 10% chance.

Thoughts? Too late to take out the flood insurance?

All I can say is if they start talking about 20%+ chances of 60ft or more, I’ll be spending a weekend pulling out the water heater, furnace and anything else I can out of the basement if I don’t have flood insurance to cover it. The only thing that would be damaged would be our newly refinished bathroom, and the electrical panel. That is assuming the water doesn’t go much higher than the ’97 levels, where it stayed below the main floor.