50 THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINE • Early Summer 2018 TheCoastalBend.com 50 THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINE • Early Summer 2018 TheCoastalBend.com like so many of their neighbors, those who were both much more and much less fortunate than the Bepko’s, they discovered that the institutions of storm recov- ery on which so many millions of Americans rely, was in no way prepared to han- dle the volume or intensity of destruction dealt by Hurricane Harvey, the most costly natural disaster in U.S. history. Many learned that surviving the storm itself was a small and forgettable part of recovering from its wrath. In fact, the pain to follow for the Bepko family was completely man-made, and as so many experienced, it started with long lines and lack of direction by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), a Red Cross that operated as though they had no idea what kind of help people needed, and most egregiously, actions of the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA), the private insur- ance provider empowered by the Texas Legislature to maximize their profits. TWIAoperates with virtual immunity in Texas, enabled to pull all the tricks and apply all the tactics designed to take advantage of home and business owners who find themselves in potentially desperate situations that only they can relieve. Their opening trick is to low-ball initial damage estimates via the “preliminary inspection.” Rather than conducting thorough first inspections, TWIA sends their first adjuster with the hope, one would assume, that the most naive or disinterested property owners will ac- cept the low-ball bid and blindly move along. This is the same business model of gift cards—vendors know that a certain percentage of gift cards will never be redeemed, which equals pure, free money for the card seller. Once the owner is able to secure a second inspection, which will always be done by a new adjuster and will al- ways take many weeks to schedule—all the while the meter runs on relocation and other expenses associated with be- ing out of your home—the second adjuster can be counted on to actually inspect the full damage to the home. But the other assurance is that you will now learn about water- lines—and how TWIA will set up a dispute with your flood insurer (typically a federal agency) to determine where water damage from above ends and where water damage from below begins. Luckily for the Bepko’s, this was not an issue due to their home’s stilted structure, but it is a manufactured battle that thousands of homeowners have fought, and are still fighting, in the effort to be covered by insurance for which they have paid for years.