USA: The importance of elevation
Source: USA Today
Something for the folks in Texas to think about:
Thousands of homes in New Orleans are at risk from floods because local officials let their owners skirt rebuilding requirements aimed at preventing massive losses and billions in costs to taxpayers.
In New Orleans, city records show at least 2,300 homeowners — many in areas obliterated by Hurricane Katrina and imperiled again this month as Hurricane Gustav battered the city's levees — escaped requirements that they elevate their homes.
That was common across the coast, as officials faced intense pressure to rebuild quickly, says Shirley Laska, director of the University of New Orleans' Center for Hazards Assessment, Response and Technology. Federal inspectors found examples of homeowners evading elevation requirements as far away as Alabama.
If homeowners don't elevate, "it's the federal taxpayers who pay to fix it, time after time," says Larry Larson, head of the Association of State Floodplain Managers. That's because the owners still qualify for flood insurance. The 2005 hurricanes caused so much damage that the insurance program needed $20 billion from taxpayers.
Of course just how long the taxpayers are going to pay for damage to the same places when folks rebuild without elevating is another story. But here's the money quote:
Exactly how many homeowners escaped elevation requirements is unclear. K.C. King, who lives in New Orleans' Gentilly section, says about 125 of his neighbors have rebuilt, but only about a dozen raised their homes. "If that's not a portrait of failure, I don't know what is."
