Half a year after Hurricane Sally tore across the Gulf Coast, a Pensacola-area family says the storm’s aftermath still fills their home — and their insurer still hasn’t paid them a dime.
March 16 marked six months since Sally came ashore, and Doug and Wendy Underhill count themselves among the many residents still picking up the pieces. The couple estimates more than $450,000 in damage to their home that remains unrepaired.
Living in Half a House
The losses are measured in rooms. “We have half the square footage we had,” Wendy Underhill said. The family lost three of its four bedrooms and two of its four bathrooms, along with the family room and utility room. The couple’s son, who was 17 when the storm hit and has since turned 18, has been sleeping in the family’s RV. “When he leaves he will be spending his last time with us not sleeping under the same roof,” she said.
Bits of family life keep surfacing around the property — Boy Scout uniforms, medals, trophies, and most recently a son’s old pinewood derby car from Cub Scouts.
No Check, No Callback
According to the couple, their insurance company has paid nothing on their claims despite multiple filings and repeated calls, and communication eventually dried up entirely. The family has now hired an attorney.
“Simply to stop communicating, not only is that wrong but it’s so disrespectful and unethical,” Doug Underhill said. “You can say no and explain why it’s a no, but you can’t just stop picking up the telephone.”
Veterans of earlier Gulf Coast disasters — they rode out Hurricane Ivan and the 2014 flood in the same area — the Underhills said they had never seen this kind of silence from an insurer.
“We are going to fight for what’s right,” Doug Underhill said. “I don’t want one dollar beyond what’s right… I absolutely just want them to say what they are going to do and do what they said.”