I sometimes think that some of these people carting everything they own to the curb might be trying to cash in on Ins money. When this happened here I found lots of really good high $ stuff at the dump that needed nothing more than cleaned off. Still have and use a few items I found.
I had some of that when my garage burned, I had items that were still entirely useable but blackened or singed and I had them replaced. They were not like that before the fire, why should I take the hours to clean everything up so they were replaced. Who knows what the moisture and pollutants can do to items, the insurance company does not "clean stuff off" for you and you have enough to deal with when a tragedy likes this happens. Plus you may not even have anywhere to put the things while your house is being made liveable again
Rivers are still cresting further downstream here. We had about hundred people and 33 animals that were just rescued by fling wings at night through the use of night vision goggles: http://www.wunc.org/post/100-rescued-flooded-bladen-county-church-overnight#stream/0
