3d ago

“Disasters are a human choice”: Texas counties have little power to stop building in flood-prone areas

www.texastribune.org

Experts suggested that more data and education are needed as Texas and the rest of the country build in known flood plains.

21 comments

Florida does the same. Shortly after moving out of the state, we heard from a friend still there that a builder was approved to build 500 new homes in the wetlands around Northport and port Charlotte. For those that don't know, the current homes already have major flood issues just from normal rain and are underwater every hurricane. This is just making it worse.
- And I guess they refuse to build the homes on elevated stilts because capitalism right?
If we’re so desperate for places to build maybe a declining birth rate is a good thing
If lenders require insurance, and insurers won't cover it, shouldn't it stop happening anyway?
- The problem there is that the national flood insurance program heavily subsidizes flood insurance and artificially drives down the cost of living in a flood zone.
  
  Depends where your "flood zone" is... If your coastal you get heavy subsidies, if your inland (barring being near some large rivers and lakes) you are subsidizing the coast.
  I have to pay flood insurance for a dry brook that hasn't flooded in its history. It costs over $1,200 a year for my 160k house. If I could get private flood insurance the cost would be 2 to 300, possibly even less.
Texas Tribune is legit one of the best independent media not funded by any billionaire asshats, please do support them if you can!
I've seen it happen multiple times. Most notably where a small town was wiped off the mountainside by a landslide. My senior geologist suggested they rebuild some miles away on a more stable site, but they insisted on rebuilding rigjt where the old town was.
About 10 years later, the town was wiped off the mountainside by another landslide.
So much tax money is wasted on cities built on unsuitable land, New Orleans being a prime example.
If there is a acknowledgement that what you are building is in a natural flood zone, why not build according to the environmental conditions of the area?
There must be homes designs that don't look like the typical "American dream" single family home.
Something on stilts comes to mind.
- A house that looked almost exactly like this was swept away by the flood. It was an incredibly sad story (the family described the event in great detail). The family probably did everything they could've done. At a certain point the government NEEDS to intervene. A family can't reasonably do their own weather analysis, flood plane analysis, or build and maintain their own alert system.
  
  I disagree (the government should offer the service to those that want it) families should be able to overbuild their house to the point that it resists almost all flooding by making it out of large enough I beams or steel pipe.
- This would work for areas that flood gradually. The flooding that happened had fast moving water. And water of that volume moving that fast is like an unstoppable force. I would trust that structure to hold up.
- probably would be too expensive, and cost prohibitive, and even if they make that kind of house flooding can be severe enough where it can still destroy a house.
Good, detailed article. Very informative.
just like florida does, build in flood plains.

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