Theo Keith is a political reporter from KMSP in Minneapolis.
NEWS: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has asked President Donald Trump for a federal disaster declaration to deal with damage from the late May rioting in Minneapolis and St. Paul. pic.twitter.com/Owc2iqsC9Y
— Theo Keith (@TheoKeith) July 2, 2020
Damage to public infrastructure, including debris removal and damage to public buildings and equipment totals $15.6 million, Walz says.
More than 1,500 businesses were damaged by vandalism, looting or fires, causing at least $500 million in damage.
— Theo Keith (@TheoKeith) July 2, 2020
Federal charges have been filed against 10 people for rioting and arson, Walz wrote to Trump in his request.
— Theo Keith (@TheoKeith) July 2, 2020
Without federal disaster assistance, “Minnesotans will struggle to return their communities to normalcy,” Walz wrote to Trump.
— Theo Keith (@TheoKeith) July 2, 2020
(Featured image is the Seal of Minneapolis)
$500 million in damage. That number surprised me.
10 people. That number also surprised me.Report
333,333 per business, on average.
That feels high or low to you?
Would be interesting to see what insurance adjusters peg the number at.Report
That’s the price of a house here in town. 1500 houses.Report
I wouldn’t give him a dime. It wasn’t an act of nature, it was Minneapolis folks setting Minneapolis businesses on fire. I don’t see why anyone else should be on the hook for that. Heck, maybe they’ve formed a cult that wants to have an annual “Let’s Torch the City” festival to compete with Burning Man. If so, the festival needs a cover charge big enough to pay for all the fun.Report
Heh. Can’t wait for your take on seaside houses come hurricane season.Report
The folks hit by a hurricane didn’t decide to make a hurricane.
It’s kind of like fire insurance. It doesn’t cover you if you intentionally set your own house on fire. Similarly, you don’t get a free new neighborhood by deciding to burn the old one down.Report
Damn right. And while we’re talking about “insurance”, we ought to stop subsidizing folk living in hurricane and flood zones. I see no reason to aide folks rebuilding their seaside houses every few years.Report
They decided to build homes in hurricane territory. The government really ought to stop subsidizing that.Report
It’s surprising how much damage peaceful protests can do.Report
Well, I did some research into how much a window costs and it’s, like, a *LOT*. Here.
I couldn’t get a good estimate for, like, what if you want to replace one of the windows at Auto Zone. If someone walked up and broke every Auto Zone front window and did nothing else, how much would it cost to replace the Auto Zone windows? I dunno.
But a picture window apparently costs about a thousand dollars to install/replace and 30% of that is labor.
So break every window in the front of an Auto Zone?
I googled Auto Zone pictures and found that it’s name is actually “Autozone” with no space and see that a lot of store have between 6-8 picture windows in the front. So $6-8 grand right there. And that’s not talking about inventory replacement and that’s not talking about cleanup and it’s not even mentioning fire damage.
It makes me wonder what happens next time there’s a peaceful protest. “It’s just property” fails to note a *LOT* of things.Report