"Insurance companies have continuously and wrongly denied homeowner's claims, leaving thousands facing severe and expensive damage to their homes We have been fighting these erroneous denials and winning our cases for homeowners," said Mark Nation, head of Morgan & Morgan's insurance recovery group in Miami.

Engineers said a 5.2-foot storm surge would cause 'catastrophic damage to the incomplete and weakened seawall.'

"If you just do the math, it's hard to understand how there's going to be enough money to compensate those people, and I feel bad for them," one construction attorney said.