Flood Games - How manipulation of flood insurance leads to repeat disasters

[Elderberry]

Houston Chronicle By Mark Collette

Officials in Houston and across the country are failing to enforce a central pillar of the taxpayer-subsidized National Flood Insurance Program: Making sure severely damaged properties are elevated or removed from flood plains.

Thousands of such homes get rebuilt and then flood again, often for more than they are worth, costing taxpayers more than $1 billion in repeat losses.

The deeply indebted program is set to lapse July 31 without congressional reauthorization, and lawmakers have put forward a host of potential reforms to tie to that vote, but none directly address the costly problem of poorly enforced elevation requirements.

Texas has more flooded properties with evidence of this problem than any other state but Louisiana; Houston has more than any other city, a Houston Chronicle investigation found. Seven of the nation's 10 most frequently substantially damaged properties are in Houston. Those seven have had 107 damage claims totaling $9 million, even though the combined value of those buildings is just $426,000.

Under federal rules, local officials are supposed to assess flood damages and require demolition or elevation if the damage is estimated at 50 percent or more of the home's value. But telling traumatized flood victims that they will have to undertake expensive home elevation projects is politically and emotionally difficult, so officials lowball the damage estimates, putting people and homes back in vulnerable places, the Chronicle found.

More: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Flood-Games-How-victims-local-officials-and-an-13031069.php

[Smokin Joe]

Nothing that doesn't happen in flood areas and coastal regions subject to frequent hurricane damage. In some areas, there are programs to buy the destroyed properties and convert the areas subject to flooding to flood controls and greenspaces and not rebuild in harm's way.

[roamer_1]

[...] not rebuild in harm's way.

The problem is, almost everywhere is in harms way in one way or another.
Most of it is the style of construction, which doesn't jibe with nature.

I certainly wouldn't put a mcmansion in a flood zone - crappy small houses on piles have a long, long history in flood zones and swamps for a reason. If you want to live on the beach, be prepared to live in a grass hut - That's what works there.

[Smokin Joe]

The problem is, almost everywhere is in harms way in one way or another.
Most of it is the style of construction, which doesn't jibe with nature.

I certainly wouldn't put a mcmansion in a flood zone - crappy small houses on piles have a long, long history in flood zones and swamps for a reason. If you want to live on the beach, be prepared to live in a grass hut - That's what works there.

Yep. But its funny how one area getting built up can affect another. And then, we haven't been living in some areas long enough that people are aware of how bad what can get where. Sure, it's obvious to most folks near the coasts and in the Bayous, and people who live in grass huts will come back and put up another one, where a frame house won't last and will cost a fortune more.

Still, getting folks out of flood plains can be hard, and stuff upstream will change that a mite. Then there are those extraordinary weather events that wreck the results of any calculations.

You can't avoid everything, but you can dodge the common stuff. 

[roamer_1]

You can't avoid everything, but you can dodge the common stuff.

Maybe so... But I have lived in a creek  bottom in a holler, all my life, one place or another...
But the house is cheap (comparatively), and a world class flood is not unexpected. I will take my licks when I have to. A couple thousand would put it back enough, and I can make do for the rest.  I don't need insured for it.

But that's how it should be if you live like that.

[thackney]

Under federal rules, local officials are supposed to assess flood damages and require demolition or elevation if the damage is estimated at 50 percent or more of the home's value....

This seems to be rarely done.  And what if no city government?  Is this supposed to be a county issue? 

I wasn't required a rebuild permit unless the water damage was over 4 foot inside.  Consequently the county had no input in spite of damages well above 50% of value.