AP on mortgage foreclosures: Hurricane victims hardest hit

You have got to be kidding me.

AP IMPACT: Foreclosures add to hurricane hazards
Mike Manikchand points toward his neighbors – a half-dozen empty, foreclosed-upon homes, sitting on weed-strewn yards – and he wonders: What will happen if a hurricane slams into southwest Florida this year?

His simple answer: “A lot of these places will get destroyed.”

Unoccupied, these homes would be defenseless in a storm; there will be no one to put up shutters, batten down garage doors and otherwise secure homes. But that’s not all. Nearby homes and their residents would also be at risk from wind-propelled debris.

Lehigh Acres and other communities at the epicenter of the nation’s housing crisis are coming to realize that this year’s hurricane season, beginning June 1, represents yet another pitfall. Hurricanes could make hazards of thousands of foreclosed-upon houses, and their diminished value could decrease even more.

The article then goes on to mournfully detail the poor, hardworking schlubs of Hurricane Coast Land who haven’t lost their homes, but who will be affected by the flying swingsets of the left behind. And then it defeats its own purpose with facts like these:

In Galveston, Texas, where more than 17,000 home were damaged by Hurricane Ike last year, there are still many empty homes – but not because of foreclosures. The properties were damaged during the storm and owners don’t have the money to rebuild.

“These homeowners have the biggest hurdles as far as getting back into their homes,” City spokeswoman Alicia Cahill said. “A lot of the homes that were affected were lower income to moderate income families who didn’t have a huge insurance policy or a lot of extra cash lying around to make repairs.”

Um—which is it? Foreclosures or lack of insurance or the stupidity of buying a coastal home in a hurricane zone?

Some banks say that they have a plan for hurricanes; JP Morgan Chase says it will use property management companies and bank field employees to make sure properties are storm-ready. And if the homes are damaged or destroyed during a storm, said Michael Fusco, a spokesman for JP Morgan Chase, the bank “acts just like a homeowner” and will file an insurance claim.

Debora Blume, a spokeswoman for Wells Fargo Bank, said her company hires local real estate agents who have been assigned to market bank-owned properties to secure homes against hurricane damage.

But one real estate agent in the Fort Myers area said the process of putting the maintenance work out to bid and then getting approval from the bank that owns the property might not be workable as a storm bears down.

Oh, so it’s really just another load of crap. Because if the companies that own the homes have already taken precautions for hurricanes, then there’s no sensationalistic article to be written.

Oh. Wait.