There’s something happening here
What it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound Everybody look what’s going down
Tim Marshall, storm chaser…drove from his home in the Dallas area to a Slidell parking garage in an extended cab Chevy pickup, loaded down with supplies and technology, to track Hurricane Katrina…
The Sun Herald’s Anita Lee described Marshall, a shareholder in Haag Engineering, as appearing every inch the mild-mannered engineer in his business suit and oversized wire-rimmed glasses on the witness stand. But get him out of a courtroom and it’s like Superman stepping from the phone booth.
Oklahoma attorney Jeff Marr, on the other hand, told Lee, The jury hated him…They viewed him as a professional witness… gave him the consideration his expert opinion deserved and wrote him off.
Following Hurricane Katrina, Haag’s Superman, the professional witness, became a survey-thumping Reverend Leroy holding forth in the Church of What’s Happening Now -Mississippi’s Southern District Federal Court.
Abundant evidence exists to document the role Haag played in State Farm’s claims handling. The date of the Survey’s publication, on the other hand, only documents the date a published report was available; but, Haag’s post-hearing brief attempts to play word games with the Court:
The evidence [sic] has shown that the Haag Survey did not exist at the time the McIntosh flood claim was adjusted and submitted to the government.
Really hot – and much larger than the hot spot identified here and here – if Derek Wyatt’s 30(b)(6) deposition of Stephan Hinkle in Pontius v State Farm is considered:
Area identified in quoted text from 30(b)(6) deposition of Stephan Hinkle (A - C) shown with location of McIntosh (D) and Bossier property (E)
I actually was in Biloxi when I wrote…[the Wind-Water Protocol]… And I had done — Iwent out and saw the damage, basically, and saw the — well, the first area I went to when I was there was right near this claim office on Pops Ferry Road in Biloxi (Location A). There’s this development called Destiny Plantation. (Location C) It’s right on the back bay of Biloxi. And I had occasion to drive down there. And I — there, I comprehended the nature of the damage, is what made me kind of outline in my mind how to do this.
But the gate to Destiny Plantation is on Brody Road (Location B), which is about a half a mile inland from the shore. You go in the gate and there was no damage whatsoever to the homes immediately around the gate. You take the road south toward the bay, and immediately you notice where the water stopped. And by the time you get down to the bay itself, the homes that were built were totally destroyed. They were slab homes. Which indicated to me that we’ve got a situation here.
How many other hot spots were there given the estimated number of State Farm policyholders with dual coverage Hinkle provided applied to the flooded areas of all three coastal counties and not just this one area in Biloxi?
