Swordsmyth
08-29-2017, 12:50 PM
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.
Hurricane Harvey is not the first costly flood to hit Houston since that 1998 report. In 2001, Tropical Storm Allison dumped more than two feet of rain on the city, causing about $5 billion in damages. Two relatively modest storms that hit Houston in 2015 and 2016—so small they didn't get names—did so much property damage they made the list of the 15 highest-priced floods in U.S. history. But Houston’s low-lying flatlands keep booming, as sprawling subdivisions and parking lots pave over the wetlands and pastures that used to soak up the area’s excess rainfall, which is how Houston managed to host three “500-year floods” in the past three years.
“This was inevitable,” says Conrad, who is now a consultant for the Association of State Floodplain Managers. “We never learn.”
Created in 1968, the National Flood Insurance Program was actually supposed to help prevent risky development. Its complex rules required new construction within designated 100-year floodplains to meet higher flood-proofing standards and required “substantially damaged” properties that received claims worth half their value to be relocated or elevated. But most of the program’s 100-year flood maps are woefully obsolete, relocation almost never happens, and Uncle Sam has continued to cut multiple checks for repetitive losses. A recent Pew Foundation study found that the Higher Ground problems have not been solved (http://www.pewtrusts.org/%7E/media/assets/2016/10/repeatedly_flooded_properties_cost_billions.pdf?la =en); about 1 percent of insured properties have sustained repetitive losses, accounting for more than 25 percent of the nation’s flood claims. One $69,000 home in Mississippi flooded 34 times in 32 years, producing $663,000 in payouts. The government routinely dishes out more in claims than it takes in through premiums, and the program has gradually drifted deeper and deeper into debt.
“It’s basically lather, rinse, repeat,” says Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. “The fundamental responsibility of government is to protect people, but this program keeps encouraging people to build in harm’s way.”
Environmentalists, taxpayer groups and other reformers across the political spectrum have tried to rein in the program, pushing to raise premiums to better reflect flood risks and limit repetitive loss payments. But they have encountered ferocious pushback in Washington from real estate agents, homebuilders and other development interests, as well as politicians representing areas that tend to go underwater. They finally broke through in 2012, when Congress passed a rare bipartisan reform bill that would have jacked up premiums to some semblance of actuarially sound levels within a few years. But after an uproar from coastal and riverfront communities, Congress reversed itself in equally bipartisan fashion in 2014, so most premiums will rise much more gradually, and won’t reflect actual risks (http://time.com/92068/hell-and-high-water/) for as long as two decades.
Now Congress must reauthorize the program before it expires on September 30, and Congressman Jeb Hensarling, a Texas Republican who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, has proposed several reforms to rein it in (http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/28/harvey-flood-insurance-hensarling-hurricane-242114?lo=ap_e2). But his plan to limit subsidies for expensive repetitive-loss properties was in trouble before Harvey in the House, and his more ideological measures to expand private flood insurance face an uncertain future in the Senate. Reformers hope the shock of seeing America’s fourth-largest city underwater will at least help build support for more money for better floodplain mapping, as well as flood-proofing and relocation of the most vulnerable properties. But they recognize they’re swimming upstream.
More at: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/29/a-storm-made-in-washington-215549
Hurricane Harvey is not the first costly flood to hit Houston since that 1998 report. In 2001, Tropical Storm Allison dumped more than two feet of rain on the city, causing about $5 billion in damages. Two relatively modest storms that hit Houston in 2015 and 2016—so small they didn't get names—did so much property damage they made the list of the 15 highest-priced floods in U.S. history. But Houston’s low-lying flatlands keep booming, as sprawling subdivisions and parking lots pave over the wetlands and pastures that used to soak up the area’s excess rainfall, which is how Houston managed to host three “500-year floods” in the past three years.
“This was inevitable,” says Conrad, who is now a consultant for the Association of State Floodplain Managers. “We never learn.”
Created in 1968, the National Flood Insurance Program was actually supposed to help prevent risky development. Its complex rules required new construction within designated 100-year floodplains to meet higher flood-proofing standards and required “substantially damaged” properties that received claims worth half their value to be relocated or elevated. But most of the program’s 100-year flood maps are woefully obsolete, relocation almost never happens, and Uncle Sam has continued to cut multiple checks for repetitive losses. A recent Pew Foundation study found that the Higher Ground problems have not been solved (http://www.pewtrusts.org/%7E/media/assets/2016/10/repeatedly_flooded_properties_cost_billions.pdf?la =en); about 1 percent of insured properties have sustained repetitive losses, accounting for more than 25 percent of the nation’s flood claims. One $69,000 home in Mississippi flooded 34 times in 32 years, producing $663,000 in payouts. The government routinely dishes out more in claims than it takes in through premiums, and the program has gradually drifted deeper and deeper into debt.
“It’s basically lather, rinse, repeat,” says Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. “The fundamental responsibility of government is to protect people, but this program keeps encouraging people to build in harm’s way.”
Environmentalists, taxpayer groups and other reformers across the political spectrum have tried to rein in the program, pushing to raise premiums to better reflect flood risks and limit repetitive loss payments. But they have encountered ferocious pushback in Washington from real estate agents, homebuilders and other development interests, as well as politicians representing areas that tend to go underwater. They finally broke through in 2012, when Congress passed a rare bipartisan reform bill that would have jacked up premiums to some semblance of actuarially sound levels within a few years. But after an uproar from coastal and riverfront communities, Congress reversed itself in equally bipartisan fashion in 2014, so most premiums will rise much more gradually, and won’t reflect actual risks (http://time.com/92068/hell-and-high-water/) for as long as two decades.
Now Congress must reauthorize the program before it expires on September 30, and Congressman Jeb Hensarling, a Texas Republican who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, has proposed several reforms to rein it in (http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/28/harvey-flood-insurance-hensarling-hurricane-242114?lo=ap_e2). But his plan to limit subsidies for expensive repetitive-loss properties was in trouble before Harvey in the House, and his more ideological measures to expand private flood insurance face an uncertain future in the Senate. Reformers hope the shock of seeing America’s fourth-largest city underwater will at least help build support for more money for better floodplain mapping, as well as flood-proofing and relocation of the most vulnerable properties. But they recognize they’re swimming upstream.
More at: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/29/a-storm-made-in-washington-215549