Despite Arlene, Business-As-Usual for IIAG

More than 700 Independent Insurance Agents of Georgia members attending the 108th Annual Convention and Exhibition in Destin, Fla., watched closely on June 11 as Tropical Storm Arlene sped toward the Florida Panhandle. As Arlene approached concern mounted about where it would go and if it would be a Category 1 storm when it hit land.

“Overall, it worked out pretty well, because Saturday, when the storm really blew in, was our vendors’ day and so everybody was inside all afternoon,” Mike Clark, convention chairman and president-elect told Insurance Journal. “We would come out and watch the wind blow and the rain blow sideways. It was interesting, but nobody ever felt unsafe.”

Clark said that Arlene blew right through Destin on June 11 and everything was back to normal by Sunday, June 12.

“Sunday morning it was clear again and everyone was able to participate in the regularly scheduled activities like golf and tennis,” Clark explained. “Even the members going out deep-sea fishing were able to do so.”

IIAG piggybacked two conferences, Young Agents and its regular conference, with an estimated 300 young agents attending and 500 regular members.

IIAG’s business meetings and elections were followed by a presentation and discussion about “Hot Issues and Answers,” presented by Bob Rusbuldt, IIABA CEO. An afternoon seminar on ethics, moderated by Tom Freeland of Infinity Insurance was followed by an evening dinner during which IIAG officers were elected. (see page 9)

Florida’s Panhandle received only 6 inches of rain from the Atlantic hurricane season’s first named storm. A few roads flooded power outages affected about 11,000 consumers. Arlene’s remnants pushed across Tennessee Sunday, bringing the state rain and thunderstorms.

Showers and thunderstorms streamed northward Sunday from western Tennessee through Kentucky into Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.

After last year’s busy hurricane season, many Florida homeowners overreacted to Tropical Storm Arlene, emptying stores of supplies and flocking to gas stations.

“Arlene was a typical early tropical storm, a rainmaker and a little coastal flooding,” Gary Beeler, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Mobile, Ala. told the Associated Press. “We’ve had enough experience, but it’s a good way to test some things we didn’t do so well in Hurricane Ivan. The inland counties may have heightened their awareness more. … We know Ivan cleaned their clock.”

Nearly 5-1/2 inches of rain fell at nearby Hurlburt Field, but the storm wasn’t as big a rainmaker as some spring thunderstorms that drenched the area. April was Pensacola’s wettest month on record at 24.56 inches, Beeler said.