Sandy

[Belgarath]

Up here in the Arctic, we escaped all but some moderate rain and a bit of wind. Minor inconveniences. For all of you and your families and friends who are affected, my best wishes for whatever you will need to overcome. Hang in there.

[GMK]

Amen to that. From out here at the western fringe of Sandy's giant swirl, we send all our best wishes to everyone on the coast and in the huge affected expanse westward.

[Tom Poje]

Someone I talked to at the ASPPA Conference indicated a couple hundred people were unable to attend (over 1500 were scheduled to attend). I had flown in Sunday morning and at that time the only major problem was that a bunch of the roads were closed due to the marathon that was taking place.

It rained all Monday, off and on Tuesday. My morning flight Wednesday was cancelled. The hotel 'discovered' a number of leaks on the ground floor due to all the blowing and rain and everything else. Many businesses close to the hotel were closed as well. Looked absolutely nasty gazing out upon the harbor.

[MoJo]

Certainly Sandy created havoc - and being in NE Ohio, we got the western edge of the storm, which has caused power outages (several of my peeps are, and will be without power through the weekend), flooding and other "distress." Considering we got 10% (or less) of the brunt of it, I can't even imagine what it's like east of here.

But, on a practical note, does anyone have any good insights on what documentation would be appropriate for casualty loss hardship distributions? We're starting to get requests, and want to be responsive, but remain compliant. As I read the regs/code/secondary information (of which most simply parrots the first two), a condition is "not reimburseable by insurance" - which is a determination that may take weeks, months, or even years. Is there a "best practice" people follow or believe may be appropriate?

Additionally, despite the fact that there is an election in 5 days (you may have heards something about it, and being in Ohio, we've heard little of anything else), is anyone aware of any legislative or regulatory action to provide additional relief for distributions from plans for hurricane relief?

[Tom Poje]

basically things were pretty well shut down in DC the last few days, so nothing was brought up about the issue at the Conference. (They did good to get an IRS body to make it to the Q and As from what I've heard.

As with other natural disasters, I'm sure there will be something special that will come out soon for those in the effected areas.