In response to the re-run of our archival post not to belabor the point, which originally ran on April 7, 2009 a reader sent in some observations referring us to documents we already linked which gives us the correct flood level at the McIntosh property. I actually did the research on the official flood levels for a companion post to the original (which never ran) so I am happy for the steer, especially since we had all the data.
Before we get to the pictures it and the original text of the post (as corrected) it would help to revisit with State Farm’s own experts, a dubious lot as a whole that often has trouble keeping their lies straight. In particular we are going to focus on one “rent-a-doc” in University of Florida Engineering professor Robert G Dean. It is with Dr Dean’s own report, which we linked originally in this post that we begin:
As seen in this figure, the elevation of the McIntosh property is approximately 14 feet. Menhennett (2007) conducted a survey at the McIntosh property and found that the adjacent ground elevation ranged between 12.5 ft and 15.4 ft, the top of the bottom floor of the residence was 16.5 ft and the slab of the connected garage was 14 ft. Figure 4 presents the FEMA-developed Advisory Base Flood Elevations and any High Water Marks (HWMs) in the general vicinity. Two HWMs are identified in Figure 4 and adjacent charts that are in reasonable close proximity to the McIntosh residence and their elevations as determined by survey and other characteristics are summarized in Table 2.
Dean’s choice of watermarks is interesting as one of the official measurements was taken literally within feet of the McIntosh property which in my mind makes his second choice, from over a mile to the south irrelevant. Already having one data point, which is the elevation of the McIntosh house at the top of their slab, all it takes is a trip down Dr Dean report to the official watermark measurements to find the flood level on the ground at water mark reference KMSC-02-21 was 18.6 feet which means there was 2.1 feet of water on the outside of the McIntosh residence above their slab. That is important because it would include any wave action. I am told the proper forensic engineering technique is to take inside water mark measurements. You won’t see any such reference to that data point in Dr Dean’s report. With that point made here is the text of the original post as corrected.
….Pictures are truly worth 1000 words. For instance take these from our archives of the McIntosh residence which is one of the focal points in the False Claims Act lawsuit against State Farm. There was around 4 2 feet of water inside the residence when the storm surge peaked in the Biloxi Bay several hours after Hurricane force winds began blowing.
Remember the neighbors said the house next door blew apart and into the McIntosh residence which in turn breached its structural integrity. I wonder whose roof trusses are in the picture? The McIntosh residence still has its roof and there is no house between them and the water. Continue reading “USA Ex Rel Rigsby v State Farm: An analysis of the McIntosh Claim: Updating the original post Not to belabor the point”