When you live along the coast, one of the top priorities is to protect your home from storms. Two years ago, The South Carolina Department of Insurance started offering grants to coastal homeowners to strengthen their homes.
Melvin Limerick is one of the homeowners who took advantage of the grants. He and his wife Joyce retired to Horry County six years ago from Virginia. They recently decided to figure out how to make their home safe from storms. They hired certified inspectors to see how they could re-roof their home. They had a new roof installed with stronger shingles and nails.
"Now we feel a lot better,” said Limerick. “We feel safer that we've got a much stronger house. If it gets to a cat 5, we're leaving at 3. We don't know what's going to happen there. But, we feel the house is a lot stronger and my wife is a lot more relaxed now."
South Carolina Safe Home, to date, gave more than 1000 grants of up to 5-thousand dollars each to homeowners in 12 eastern Carolina counties. Nearly two million dollars in grants went to Horry County homeowners alone. Homes with the various storm retro fits also qualify for insurance discounts.
"Right now, we're seeing anywhere between 22 and 24 percent savings from folks that have gone through the grant program,” said Ann Roberson with the SC Department of Insurance. “That's wonderful news as we're trying to make sure insurance is affordable and available here in the coastal regions."
Roberson said there's about an 18 month wait for grant money due to the high interest in the program. The same high interest also helped to create nearly 140 jobs across the state, so far.
For more information on the Safe Home Grants: http://www.doi.sc.gov
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