Quote:
Originally Posted by DanaC
I don't know exactly what is required. As I understand it, what is needed at the moment isa more joined up approach. Much of the flood defense strategies have been very localised, when what is needed is a more regional response.
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Mistake is to build more leeves. For example, to protect a flood plain of east St Louis, they kept upgrading that leeve. It is now 50 feet (15 meters) high. That was not a solution. River between St Louis and Illinois is only a mile wide. So it backs up. Under Clinton (when FEMA was managed by professionals), towns such as Gafton Il were moved to higher ground. To create more flood plains. If a town floods, either levees downstream must be removed. Or that land must become a floodplain.
Best on floodplains are stadiums, parking lots, parks, swamps, and forests, and corn fields. Flooded homes means nobody should have been living there.
Of course, once Brownie took over FEMA (remember New Orleans and Katrina), then cost controls replaced productive actions.
Same is what responsible reporters would be asking in the Midlands. Upstream construction without retention basins means larger flood plains must be constructed downstream - not more leeves. But that means making decisions based upon the product - not in short term finance thinking as taught in business schools.
Question to be asked in the Midlands. Was that flooding due to business school graduates and a love of higher leeves? Or was it an exception; something that will not happen again in 100 years? Remember, new construction upstream means more water requiring larger flood plains downstream. Are retention basins routinely installed on up to 10% of each lot used in new construction? If not, then that is the serious problem - not the resulting flooding.