The issue. Simple, Government did two stupid things. First they built the road creating a basin. Second they allowed hundreds or people to build houses there. From 1950 to 1955 there were multiple massive hurricanes, flooding the area. In Sandy a repeat but exacerbated by human ignorance.
Now the NY Times, one a good newspaper but now slowly becoming the rag of the week, but oh well let's try it, they note:
And when disaster knocks at the door, the bill
is left to taxpayers who subsidize the National Flood Insurance Program.
That money is often used to rebuild homes in the same high-risk
locations. Unfortunately, given current insurance programs, rates that
don’t reflect the true risk in hazard-prone regions and the lack of
incentives to persuade people not to live in these areas, the system we
have is unsustainable.We need to be smarter about where we are
developing and how we’re doing it, building in resilience in any new
construction in areas prone to weather and climate extremes. People who
choose to live in high-risk areas should bear the cost when disaster
strikes. Of course, we should be helping people hit by big storms. But
I’d rather see those dollars directed to hazard mitigation, and making
existing and future development better able to withstand a disaster. Just because we can live somewhere doesn’t mean
we should. After all, as the saying goes, “The definition of insanity is
doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different
results.”
I would have to agree. We have allowed and underwritten many foolish buildings with known loss potentials. We actually subsidize them, through the taxpayer.
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