How Do You Ethically Invest in a Disaster Zone?

[Mindy Jensen]

Harvey damaged 203,000 homes in Houston - at least that's the number I read this morning. I'm sure it's going to go up. I read 90% of homes destroyed did not have flood insurance.

Irma looks to be headed to Florida. She's the biggest hurricane in recorded history.

Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005 and did billions of dollars of damage.

There's an opportunity to solve someone's problem, but there's also an opportunity to take advantage of someone when they're at their lowest point. 

How do you invest - truly help people out in these areas - without appearing to take advantage of them? With water infiltration, you need to act fast, so you don't really have a lot of time to negotiate. Mold waits for no one...

There is a  trending discussion from an investor in Houston who incurred major damage from the hurricane, but had no insurance. How does he repair his home?

On a related note, how do you shield yourself from these problems in the future, outside of not investing near water?