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I prefer the buyer-beware solution to this problem. Educate all you want, but if I want to build on a flood plain (especially now that there have long been cont

I prefer the buyer-beware solution to this problem. Educate all you want, but if I want to build on a flood plain (especially now that there have long been contractors which can build flood-proof homes on stilts), I should be allowed to. FEMA should not be encouraging this by always serving people in known floodplains. I'm sure insurance companies already encode this in premiums (except apparently the ones which did not tell the insured about this issue in Houston).

sunir 9y ago
However you are not allowed to die for making this decision. Emergency services have to be spent rescuing you. I recognize the American mindset of independence is different than the Canadian one of interdependence. It is too bad most of American society didn't have to survive an brutal overwinter in its formative days.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- microcolonel 9y ago
  > I recognize the American mindset of independence is different than the Canadian one of interdependence. You're not the only Canadian here, bud. ;- ) > However you are not allowed to die for making this decision. Emergency services have to be spent rescuing you. That's really the problem here. It needs to be possible to bargain access to these services, or pay for them at a higher rate. The homeowner must be directly exposed to the cost of living in a floodplain and having rescue workers come to them.
  - sunir 9y ago
    We do that with fire services and police services. However that is because the risk is not really loss of life, just property. We decided as society that human life is not cheap and disposable. And while I recognize that argument begs the question.. that "we as society" may or may not include an individual who may disagree, the heart of the point is the individual isn't patamouny to how the world works.
- tyu100 9y ago
  Feel free to fly over Richmond B.C., an entire massive city built on sandy soil that will sink in the next big earthquake before you get too high on that horse.
  - sunir 9y ago
    Ok. But Ontario is the only true Canada as we all know. :)
    - yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
      Inhabited by Scotsmen, is it?
      - sunir 9y ago
        Definitely. We have the unicorn on the crest for a reason.
URSpider94 9y ago
The thing is, flood insurance is provided by the Federal government, and is heavily subsidized. No insurance company in their right mind would write a policy for these homes, and therefore the only way you’d be able to build there is if you paid cash.
mabbo 9y ago
This presumes you're the only one at risk here- you aren't. In a modern society, risk is shared. When you build a home in the middle of a flood plain, you're putting the emergency services workers who have to try to help you at risk. You're having the city build infrastructure that has to be repaired/replaced every time there's a disaster. And we all know full well it will be the poor who live in these areas and lose their homes when disaster strikes- putting themselves onto welfare and bankruptcy that the rest of us wind up paying for. There is no such thing as individual risk anymore. Welcome to the 21st century.
- eternauta3k 9y ago
  It's interesting how these social goods end up restricting freedom. Like how you have to restrict immigration if you have a social security net.
  - microcolonel 9y ago
    Or how single payer health insurance encourages the public to endorse policies which restrict people's freedom to take risks (dietary, recreational, humanitarian), even good risks (like entering said floodplain to help people who made the poor decision of building there and staying during hurricane season).
Spooky23 9y ago
How many times do we need to see the inability of people to manage risk to stop saying things like this? Flood plains exist for a reason. They are supposed to flood. Your house and the infrastructure to support it undermines its purpose and makes the risk of flooding for everyone in the region worse. The erosion of the Mississippi delta is a great example of tragedy of the commons in this scenario. We’ve spent billions on flood remediation and levees to build in floodplain, and as a result the whole delta is disappearing. New Orleans will wash away someday as a result. Every billion invested in supporting stupid decisions to build will cost $10 billion or more in destruction and misery in the future.

sunir 9y ago

However you are not allowed to die for making this decision. Emergency services have to be spent rescuing you. I recognize the American mindset of independence is different than the Canadian one of interdependence. It is too bad most of American society didn't have to survive an brutal overwinter in its formative days.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
microcolonel 9y ago
> I recognize the American mindset of independence is different than the Canadian one of interdependence. You're not the only Canadian here, bud. ;- ) > However you are not allowed to die for making this decision. Emergency services have to be spent rescuing you. That's really the problem here. It needs to be possible to bargain access to these services, or pay for them at a higher rate. The homeowner must be directly exposed to the cost of living in a floodplain and having rescue workers come to them.
- sunir 9y ago
  We do that with fire services and police services. However that is because the risk is not really loss of life, just property. We decided as society that human life is not cheap and disposable. And while I recognize that argument begs the question.. that "we as society" may or may not include an individual who may disagree, the heart of the point is the individual isn't patamouny to how the world works.
tyu100 9y ago
Feel free to fly over Richmond B.C., an entire massive city built on sandy soil that will sink in the next big earthquake before you get too high on that horse.
- sunir 9y ago
  Ok. But Ontario is the only true Canada as we all know. :)
  - yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
    Inhabited by Scotsmen, is it?
    - sunir 9y ago
      Definitely. We have the unicorn on the crest for a reason.

URSpider94 9y ago

The thing is, flood insurance is provided by the Federal government, and is heavily subsidized. No insurance company in their right mind would write a policy for these homes, and therefore the only way you’d be able to build there is if you paid cash.

mabbo 9y ago

This presumes you're the only one at risk here- you aren't. In a modern society, risk is shared. When you build a home in the middle of a flood plain, you're putting the emergency services workers who have to try to help you at risk. You're having the city build infrastructure that has to be repaired/replaced every time there's a disaster. And we all know full well it will be the poor who live in these areas and lose their homes when disaster strikes- putting themselves onto welfare and bankruptcy that the rest of us wind up paying for. There is no such thing as individual risk anymore. Welcome to the 21st century.

eternauta3k 9y ago
It's interesting how these social goods end up restricting freedom. Like how you have to restrict immigration if you have a social security net.
- microcolonel 9y ago
  Or how single payer health insurance encourages the public to endorse policies which restrict people's freedom to take risks (dietary, recreational, humanitarian), even good risks (like entering said floodplain to help people who made the poor decision of building there and staying during hurricane season).

Spooky23 9y ago

How many times do we need to see the inability of people to manage risk to stop saying things like this? Flood plains exist for a reason. They are supposed to flood. Your house and the infrastructure to support it undermines its purpose and makes the risk of flooding for everyone in the region worse. The erosion of the Mississippi delta is a great example of tragedy of the commons in this scenario. We’ve spent billions on flood remediation and levees to build in floodplain, and as a result the whole delta is disappearing. New Orleans will wash away someday as a result. Every billion invested in supporting stupid decisions to build will cost $10 billion or more in destruction and misery in the future.