How Washington Made Harvey Worse

[homersapien 11,373]

Federally subsidized flood insurance has been an issue as far back as I remember.  I remember debating it back in the 70's.

The federal government has no business providing flood insurance because commercial insurance companies refuse to do so.  It only makes things much worse in the long run.

 

A federal insurance program made Harvey far more costly—and Congress could have known it was coming.

Hurricane Harvey was a disaster foretold.

Nearly two decades before the storm's historic assault on homes and businesses along the Gulf Coast of Texas this week, the National Wildlife Federation released a groundbreaking report about the United States government’s dysfunctional flood insurance program, demonstrating how it was making catastrophes worse by encouraging Americans to build and rebuild in flood-prone areas. The report, titled “Higher Ground,” crunched federal data to show that just 2 percent of the program’s insured properties were receiving 40 percent of its damage claims. The most egregious example was a home that had flooded 16 times in 18 years, netting its owners more than $800,000 even though it was valued at less than $115,000.

That home was located in Houston, along with more than half of America’s worst “repetitive loss properties” identified in the report. There was one other city with more repetitive losses overall, but Houston is where the federation went to announce its Higher Ground findings in July 1998, to try to build a national case for reform.

“Houston, we have a problem,” declared the report’s author, David Conrad. The repetitive losses from even modest floods, he warned, were a harbinger of a costly and potentially deadly future. “We haven’t seen the worst of this yet,” Conrad said.

Houston’s problem was runaway development in flood-prone areas, accelerated by heavily subsidized federal flood insurance. Now that Hurricane Harvey has turned Conrad’s warnings into reality, it’s worth noting that Houston’s problem was in part a Washington problem, a slow-motion disaster that was easy to predict but politically impossible to prevent. Congress often discusses fixing flood insurance to stop encouraging Americans to build in harm’s way, but the National Flood Insurance Program is still almost as dysfunctional as it was 19 years ago. It is now nearly $25 billion in the red, piling debt onto the national credit card. Meanwhile, cities like Houston—as well as New Orleans, which Higher Ground identified as the national leader in repetitive losses eight years before Hurricane Katrina—continue to sprawl into their vulnerable floodplains, aided by the availability of inexpensive federally supported insurance.

Read the rest at: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/29/a-storm-made-in-washington-215549

[AuburnNTexas 7,147]

Thank you I have been saying the same thing for years.  It is Houston today it could be coastal Virginia tomorrow. We build way to many homes and businesses in unsafe areas. The problem is now many of these area are so over-built that there is no way to relocate that many people to safer area.  My Mom's family is from the Eastern Shore of Maryland the native's built crab shacks on the brackish water rivers and built their homes away from the River. Thanks to Federal Flood insurance and many transplants who always wanted to live on the water the rivers are full of beautiful homes waiting to be washed away when the next big hurricane hits the shore.

[alexava 6,973]

I would go in the attic and set fire. 

[maxwere 82]

Excellent find homer.  I've been making this argument, but I've yet to see it elsewhere.  I was working with some local folks to possibly work up an article for FEE.   Bottom line, FEMA stinks.  They got absolutely put to shame this week by volunteers.

I'm on the front lines of this.  The water still sits some five inches down in my storm drain.  It only got that close because they had to dump the reservoirs at full pool (onto people who didn't build in a flood zone mind you).  Why?  This article hints.  My premium would have been $350ish  I elected not to buy into this flood insurance program.  Baring another named storm in the next few weeks, we passed a 1000 year flood with flying colors.  On the other hand, those homes built in the reservoirs have now flooded 3 times in 3 years.  Their premiums, 500-800ish I believe.  Really?  Is that a market valuation?  I think not.  These are MacMansions too.  Extraordinary (risk) cost burden, being reflected to the taxpayer, not the consumer.  Gov't is a terrible insurance company.

Bottom line, this is NOT a problem with lack of planning (Houston is not zoned).  Let the consumers bear the costs or build higher.  You build there, you pay for it.  You could always buy something more modest on high ground.   Now we have a huge FEMA claim bill on our hands (some of which was unavoidable).  It will be interesting to see when claims get paid.

I have another solution I'm working on.  My homemade 350 ga water harvester worked overtime this weekend.  I dumped it 4 times during the lulls.  But it really helped slow down flash flooding in the back of my property.  They can be installed in the 2-3k ga range fairly inexpensively (few thousand).  You can water your yard, wash your car etc as opposed to the hundreds of dollars/month you'll spend with city.  I can see a case for local tax exemptions in certain parts of town for catchment capacity.

[SaltyTiger 7,798]

Good article Homer

But the climate is not changing fast enough to explain the dramatic spikes in disaster costs; all seven of the billion-dollar floods in American history have made landfall in the 21st century, and Harvey will be the eighth. Experts believe the main culprit is the explosive growth of low-lying riverine and coastal development, which has had the double effect of increasing floods (by replacing prairies and other natural sponges that hold water with pavement that deflects water) while moving more property into the path of those floods. An investigation last year by ProPublica and the Texas Tribune found that the Houston area’s impervious surfaces increased by 25 percent from 1996 to 2011, as thousands of new homes were built around its bayous. Houston is renowned for its anything-goes zoning rules, but the feds have also promoted those trends by providing extremely cheap insurance in high-risk areas.

[DKW 86 7,423]

John Stossel has been making this point for years and collecting the benefits. He actually had a claim against flood insurance then discovered why his insurance was so cheap was.....govt intervention to raise insurance in the non-flood middle america and pass it on the elites on the coasts. His words, not mine. 

[homersapien 11,373]

Right Before Harvey, Trump Nixed a Rule Designed to Protect Cities From Flood Risks

Ten days before Hurricane Harvey made landfall on the Texas coast, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to speed up the pipeline for federal infrastructure projects.

One component of that Aug. 15 order? Eliminating an Obama-era rule called the federal flood risk management standard that asked agencies to account for climate change projections when they approved projects.

That drew condemnation from an odd coalition of scientists, civil engineers, and fiscal conservatives concerned about reversion to the old ways: pouring money into projects that would soon be washed away. “This Executive Order is not fiscally conservative,” said Florida Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo in a press release. “It’s irresponsible, and it will lead to taxpayer dollars being wasted on projects that may not be built to endure the flooding we are already seeing and know is only going to get worse.” FEMA floodplain managers were “aghast,” E&E News reported.

On the other side was the National Association of Home Builders. The NAHB argued the law’s requirement for raising homes after disasters “could make many projects infeasible, due to increased construction costs and the inability to offset these costs through higher rents.” Developers do tend to like unfettered waterfront construction.

 

Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump

I have always done well with properties fronting on oceans, lakes and rivers. If something works, stay with it.

3:26 PM - Aug 15, 2012

 

The rule, borne out of the Hurricane Sandy recovery effort, gave agencies three options to address flood risk in construction, Kriston Capps explains at City Lab: “using methods informed by climate science, building two feet above the 100-year flood elevation, or building to the 500-year flood elevation.”

“If we make a modest investment in building higher in advance of floods, we can reduce the amount of future federal disaster bailouts,” Alice Hill, a former special assistant to Obama who helped draft it, wrote last week. “The Standard not only saves money, it saves lives. Elevated structures provide more protection to the people inside them as floodwaters rise.”

Rep. Ralph Abraham, a Louisiana Republican who tried to undo Obama’s regulation in Congress, was thrilled with the president’s order. He told the New York Times that the state’s 2016 catastrophic flooding was an isolated event—and that regulations were the greater risk to the state’s well-being. Meanwhile, on Monday, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu asked residents to shelter in place on Tuesday as the remnants of Harvey bear down on the city.

But Abraham did have a point when he observed that the rule would make construction in his state more expensive. “We had more than our share of tragedy down here with the water, but we already have problems meeting requirements,” he told the paper. “The new plan would make it so costly for my Louisiana residents.”

The truth is that lawmakers from Brownsville to Boston represent constituents whose homes can only be insured thanks to federal flood insurance policies that no private company will provide. If rebuilding infrastructure with proper flood-ready design is more expensive, that’s because it accurately accounts for the uncomfortable level of risk in many low-lying coastal towns.

Including many of the places that Hurricane Harvey blew through this weekend—and will continue to devastate in the coming days.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2017/08/28/right_before_harvey_trump_nixed_a_rule_designed_to_protect_cities_from_flood.html

[wdefromtx 3,159]

On 8/29/2017 at 7:18 PM, alexava said:

I would go in the attic and set fire. 

I think someone might have done that to their house. Imsaw an aerial view where the houses were in about 5 ft of water and the roof was on fire on one of them in the middle of the block.

[homersapien 11,373]

On 8/31/2017 at 9:42 PM, SaltyTiger said:

Good article Homer

But the climate is not changing fast enough to explain the dramatic spikes in disaster costs; all seven of the billion-dollar floods in American history have made landfall in the 21st century, and Harvey will be the eighth. Experts believe the main culprit is the explosive growth of low-lying riverine and coastal development, which has had the double effect of increasing floods (by replacing prairies and other natural sponges that hold water with pavement that deflects water) while moving more property into the path of those floods. An investigation last year by ProPublica and the Texas Tribune found that the Houston area’s impervious surfaces increased by 25 percent from 1996 to 2011, as thousands of new homes were built around its bayous. Houston is renowned for its anything-goes zoning rules, but the feds have also promoted those trends by providing extremely cheap insurance in high-risk areas.

While one cannot say that Harvey was caused directly by climate change, the climate has been getting warmer over decades at what appears to be an increasing rate.  That does not bode well for the number and severity of future storms.  

Likewise, unregulated coastal development has been going on for decades.  A confluence of these two factors will result in more floodings of this nature.  Harvey suggests we may have reached that confluence.

[DKW 86 7,423]

13 hours ago, homersapien said:

While one cannot say that Harvey was caused directly by climate change, the climate has been getting warmer over decades at what appears to be an increasing rate.  That does not bode well for the number and severity of future storms.  

Likewise, unregulated coastal development has been going on for decades.  A confluence of these two factors will result in more floodings of this nature.  Harvey suggests we may have reached that confluence.

That is a sane, logical, truthful statement. Kudos! 

[maxwere 82]

On 9/1/2017 at 9:39 PM, homersapien said:

While one cannot say that Harvey was caused directly by climate change, the climate has been getting warmer over decades at what appears to be an increasing rate.  That does not bode well for the number and severity of future storms.  

Likewise, unregulated coastal development has been going on for decades.  A confluence of these two factors will result in more floodings of this nature.  Harvey suggests we may have reached that confluence.

It doesn't need to be regulated.  FEMA needs to stop bailing them out.  Let consumers pay a market rate of 2-5k a year for flood insurance and see what happens to coastal development. 

I personally can't feel sorry for anyone who's house flooded.  I'll help them gut it, rebuild, but I don't pity.  We have all the information in the world to assess and properly prepare for even the most catastrophic flood risks in advance.  In many ways this is a microcosm of the problems our country faces.  Us getting caked in wet crap was as much a blessing to this community as anything.  The best thing that can happen moving forward is to have FEMA buy folks out of zone A & V, turn it over to private cat insurance and somehow start to unwind this taxpayer subsidy.  Think progress.

[wdefromtx 3,159]

2 hours ago, maxwere said:

It doesn't need to be regulated.  FEMA needs to stop bailing them out.  Let consumers pay a market rate of 2-5k a year for flood insurance and see what happens to coastal development. 

I personally can't feel sorry for anyone who's house flooded.  I'll help them gut it, rebuild, but I don't pity.  We have all the information in the world to assess and properly prepare for even the most catastrophic flood risks in advance.  In many ways this is a microcosm of the problems our country faces.  Us getting caked in wet crap was as much a blessing to this community as anything.  The best thing that can happen moving forward is to have FEMA buy folks out of zone A & V, turn it over to private cat insurance and somehow start to unwind this taxpayer subsidy.  Think progress.

A lot of homes were flooded that weren't even in a 500yr area. Yeah, this could have been predicted but beyond information that is going to regularly available to a homebuyer in subdivision...much less one that has been around for 20-30 years and did fine in a 500yr flood last year. So I've got some sympathy for people that didn't buy or build in a flood plain and had their house destroyed.

But developers, cities, counties, etc. allowed the over development of the land upstream and downstream of the reservoirs are the culprits. They were aware of the risks, raked in tax money for decades for premium real estate rates. Hell, it turns out engineers sounded the alarm in 1996 about something this catastrophic but the county and city just filed it away and did nothing and did not follow any of the recommendations.

[maxwere 82]

14 hours ago, wdefromtx said:

A lot of homes were flooded that weren't even in a 500yr area. Yeah, this could have been predicted but beyond information that is going to regularly available to a homebuyer in subdivision...much less one that has been around for 20-30 years and did fine in a 500yr flood last year. So I've got some sympathy for people that didn't buy or build in a flood plain and had their house destroyed.

But developers, cities, counties, etc. allowed the over development of the land upstream and downstream of the reservoirs are the culprits. They were aware of the risks, raked in tax money for decades for premium real estate rates. Hell, it turns out engineers sounded the alarm in 1996 about something this catastrophic but the county and city just filed it away and did nothing and did not follow any of the recommendations.

I don't buy the 500 yr zone X thing.  How much dynamic analysis of loss risk do you think FEMA does?  Tail risk?  Do they go out of business when they mis-assess loss?  We all know the model has likely dramatically changed, but we are relying on regressive gov't agencies to tell us we're safe based on historic flood record (private property insurers, the kind that do deep predictive analysis, are off the hook).  It's a grave disservice to those who rely on these agencies "expertise" and for their insurance "programs".   Time to stop listening.  Get the government out of the flood insurance business.  elevationmap.net

But you're right, I'm in the ditch a lot at buffalo bayou and I can tell you the corps and HCFCD have been releasing water in the last 2 years like they're scared of something (and its not erosion in buffalo bayou that's for sure).  They knew what 20k Katy MacMansions w/ pools on 8000 sq foot lots could do.  We found out what that was.

[wdefromtx 3,159]

51 minutes ago, maxwere said:

I don't buy the 500 yr zone X thing.  How much dynamic analysis of loss risk do you think FEMA does?  Tail risk?  Do they go out of business when they mis-assess loss?  We all know the model has likely dramatically changed, but we are relying on regressive gov't agencies to tell us we're safe based on historic flood record (private property insurers, the kind that do deep predictive analysis, are off the hook).  It's a grave disservice to those who rely on these agencies "expertise" and for their insurance "programs".   Time to stop listening.  Get the government out of the flood insurance business.  elevationmap.net

But you're right, I'm in the ditch a lot at buffalo bayou and I can tell you the corps and HCFCD have been releasing water in the last 2 years like they're scared of something (and its not erosion in buffalo bayou that's for sure).  They knew what 20k Katy MacMansions w/ pools on 8000 sq foot lots could do.  We found out what that was.

I read the engineering study done in 1996. It laid out almost with perfect accuracy the flooding that we just had. The government agencies just turned a blind eye to it. It's all about the tax revenue that they wanted.

[maxwere 82]

13 minutes ago, wdefromtx said:

I read the engineering study done in 1996. It laid out almost with perfect accuracy the flooding that we just had. The government agencies just turned a blind eye to it. It's all about the tax revenue that they wanted.

Link?

[homersapien 11,373]

19 hours ago, maxwere said:

It doesn't need to be regulated.  FEMA needs to stop bailing them out.  Let consumers pay a market rate of 2-5k a year for flood insurance and see what happens to coastal development. 

I personally can't feel sorry for anyone who's house flooded.  I'll help them gut it, rebuild, but I don't pity.  We have all the information in the world to assess and properly prepare for even the most catastrophic flood risks in advance.  In many ways this is a microcosm of the problems our country faces.  Us getting caked in wet crap was as much a blessing to this community as anything.  The best thing that can happen moving forward is to have FEMA buy folks out of zone A & V, turn it over to private cat insurance and somehow start to unwind this taxpayer subsidy.  Think progress.

Good point.  

But presumably, local governments might have local zoning and code standards, just as they do now, particularly related to preservation and maintenance of natural mitigating features such as barrier islands and marshlands.

But I agree with you, the risk alone will impose a "natural regulation".

[homersapien 11,373]

16 hours ago, wdefromtx said:

A lot of homes were flooded that weren't even in a 500yr area. Yeah, this could have been predicted but beyond information that is going to regularly available to a homebuyer in subdivision...much less one that has been around for 20-30 years and did fine in a 500yr flood last year. So I've got some sympathy for people that didn't buy or build in a flood plain and had their house destroyed.

But developers, cities, counties, etc. allowed the over development of the land upstream and downstream of the reservoirs are the culprits. They were aware of the risks, raked in tax money for decades for premium real estate rates. Hell, it turns out engineers sounded the alarm in 1996 about something this catastrophic but the county and city just filed it away and did nothing and did not follow any of the recommendations.

Climate termperature is rising, sea level is rising, storms are becoming more severe and flood plains are expanding accordingly. 

[homersapien 11,373]

25 minutes ago, wdefromtx said:

I read the engineering study done in 1996. It laid out almost with perfect accuracy the flooding that we just had. The government agencies just turned a blind eye to it. It's all about the tax revenue that they wanted.

This was the exact subject of the Obama executive order that Trump cancelled just before Harvey.

Granted, it was only a directive for future planning.  And to maxwere's point, it's would be just trying to improve a subsidy program the government doesn't need to be offering in the first place.

Not sure what the tax revenue you are referring to.   Presumably you mean to the local governments and the political interaction between them and the federal government, which is legitimate.   FEMA is not a failure because the people running it are ignorant, it's because the politics on all sides prevent them from doing the right thing.  No one likes to back away from the pig trough that such programs represent.

 

[maxwere 82]

1 hour ago, homersapien said:

Good point.  

But presumably, local governments might have local zoning and code standards, just as they do now, particularly related to preservation and maintenance of natural mitigating features such as barrier islands and marshlands.

But I agree with you, the risk alone will impose a "natural regulation".

That's whats interesting about this flood is lack of zoning standards in this area.  It makes for cheap property.  I find runoff to be an interesting problem unique to the very flat geography.

Quote

No one likes to back away from the pig trough that such programs represent.

That's why we need to start private insurance with the middle class folks is zone A.  The first thing that will come out if FEMA flood program is slated for elimination will be this hurts poor people.  Poor people aren't the ones filling 6 figure claims.

Quote

Climate temperature is rising, sea level is rising, storms are becoming more severe and flood plains are expanding accordingly.

Even if this is true, and its a huge stretch, what does this have to do with Harvey?  Was the high pressures that held it in one place for 4 days particularly severe?  I can't say this storm was anything more than run-of-the-mill major hurricane that US was way overdue for.  This storm doesn't fit that narrative.

[wdefromtx 3,159]

4 hours ago, homersapien said:

Climate termperature is rising, sea level is rising, storms are becoming more severe and flood plains are expanding accordingly. 

This storm was not a very severe storm in intensity, it literally got trapped between a "rock and a hard place," the meteorologists were saying this was going to happen prior to landfall. Did higher temps cause it to go from a Cat. 3 to a Cat.4? Maybe, maybe not, but not why Houston was flooded so bad.

4 hours ago, homersapien said:

This was the exact subject of the Obama executive order that Trump cancelled just before Harvey.

Granted, it was only a directive for future planning.  And to maxwere's point, it's would be just trying to improve a subsidy program the government doesn't need to be offering in the first place.

Not sure what the tax revenue you are referring to.   Presumably you mean to the local governments and the political interaction between them and the federal government, which is legitimate.   FEMA is not a failure because the people running it are ignorant, it's because the politics on all sides prevent them from doing the right thing.  No one likes to back away from the pig trough that such programs represent.

 

The tax revenue I am referring to is the fact that the city, county, state, etc. knew that it was not a good idea to build on the land upstream and downstream of these reservoirs. Allowed it to be developed for commercial and residential use. A lot of the area flooded near the Barker was sold as "premium" wooded land. For instance, a typical house at the fringe of the western side of the Barker probably has an average annual real estate tax of 15K, 1000's of houses over say 25 years...that is a lot of money. Granted the tax on the houses 25 years ago were probably about half that due to the house cost being lower.

Add that to the the houses on the east side and the Addicks Reservoir....that's a lot of money local government raked in over time.

As far as the flood insurance goes most people I know did not have it, because it was thought it was not needed. I got it, since it is only $450 a year for my house. Because I am a "what if" person.

 

 

[wdefromtx 3,159]

2 hours ago, maxwere said:

Link?

https://www.scribd.com/document/358064224/Katy-Freeway-Corridor-Flood-Control-Study#from_embed

[maxwere 82]

Put this in action for reservoirs.

https://www.hcfcd.org/our-programs/property-acquisition-program/voluntary-acquisition/voluntary-home-buyout/

[wdefromtx 3,159]

12 hours ago, maxwere said:

Put this in action for reservoirs.

https://www.hcfcd.org/our-programs/property-acquisition-program/voluntary-acquisition/voluntary-home-buyout/

Only problem is probably 60-70% of the houses don't qualify because using the FEMA mapping they aren't in a 500yr or 100yr area.

And they don't have a few hundred million dollars to buyout the houses that have no business being that close to the reservoirs. (Well, they could if they wanted to....but don't see that happening.)

If they were to properly buy out the houses, that 400 million dollar concept from 1996 would seem like a bargain.

 

[maxwere 82]

Well my article got written.

https://fee.org/articles/flood-subsidies-helped-harvey-do-more-harm/

[homersapien 11,373]

Mar-A-Lago Has A Flood Insurance Policy Through The Federal Government

Donald Trump’s Florida estate is among the flood-prone properties covered by the controversial program.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mar-a-lago-has-a-flood-insurance-policy-through-the-federal-government_us_59b3cd79e4b0dfaafcf82e52?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009