I live well above the flood stage. You can’t even buy a home around here without a flood plain evaluation and related insurance (a point somewhat glossed over).
I don’t have a strong desire to live by the river…but I suspect if I did live in a river side house that got flooded out regularly…I would move.
However, there are very few homes in Davenport directly flooded out (not to say that there are not plenty of small town homes under water). Most of the flooded houses are from small towns in Iowa & Illinois. Downtown Davenport (and Rock Island btw) is primarily a business/entertainment area.
In the case of homes in small towns, FEMA has done buy out programs that has moved many of the people out of the flood zone (especially, the areas flooded EVERY year).
I think Davenport needs to take a long hard look at the options available. What was once a very infrequent event is now becoming more frequent. I am sure that there will be a serious discussion of this after the clean up, and peoples lives are returned to some sense of normalcy.
Quite frankly, I need more info on the costs and options for flood prevention (gates? levees? channelling the river deeper? etc…) before I make up my own mind about a solution. This is a community that was established on the Mississippi long before upstream problems caused floods to wash out our downtown. This is not a bunch of people establishing beach front homes in the Carolinas, knowing full well the dangers involved in weather dangers…and then expecting the feds to bail them out.
I don’t recall past FEMA directors standing on the White House lawn and making those kind of statements in the middle of a hurricane bashing the Carolina coastline.
This is a problem that could use a lot more light and less heat. Indeed as one of the QC Times articles points out, levees are not the magic solution to this problem…they tend to push the water into other places that then have to deal with it. A more comprehensive, regional approach should be at least part of the problem.
i used to live in the quad cities, and i still have family and friends there. it’s not like the flood is flooding everybody…it’s only flooding a few blocks up from the river, and probably for a few miles down the river. and guess what? the people there know it’ll flood. i haven’t heard people complaining about it. it happens. it happened in 93, and a few years on either side of it, and the big one in 65. there are buildings with markers on the side with the water levels etched on the side. i’d rather have no restraining wall there at all. it’s beautiful to drive along, or even walk along side the river. to see a concert or a ball game without a big dirt mound right there. there are several hundered thousand peple that live in the region, and about a hundred thousand that live in the immediate area. the whole communtity is pitching in. the damage from the last flood was around 10 or 12 million dollars (i could be wrong) in the davenport area. 10 or 12 million to clean up isn’t that much money in the grand scheme of things.
npr ran a piece the other day about the economic boom following floods–clean up crews, building supplies, etc. so the money that you’re spending (the less than a dollar that it is) is going right back into the economy. it might not seem like a big deal to you, but guess what? go to hell. you could live in kansas/oklahoma/texas region and get devasted by a tornado. san fransicans! god damn them from living in an earthquake zone! and floridians! when will those old jews realize that hurricanes happen!?!
I live quite nearby the “big three” beaches of Delaware- Rehoboth, Dewey, and Bethany.
I have developed a great respect for nature. It’s really quite spectacular when the powers that be look upon some ultra-rich people with a multimillion dollar beach house built right on the dunes and say “Fuck you!” with appropriate sounds of smiting.
The problem: Homeowners who live in these big homes, some of them actually on the shore of Lake Michigan, due to forces of nature, including beach starvation, face the loss of their homes.
Tides keep washing away the sand, and changing the coast of the lake.Attempts to keep the shoreline the same forever, with walls and nourishing the beach with more sand have failed, and while the coast recedes, these home ownwers have applied for govt. grants to aid them in their time of need.
The grant money was denied. Although an anonymous donor offered $5 million to help save the beach, the offer was rejected. the donor had asked for increased public access to the imperiled beach.
Entitlement and idiocy abound, and it seems to love the beach.And still some people want to build on the beach!!
The problem isn’t just building on flood plains. The widespread fucking with nature’s own flood management techniques means that humanity is also increasing the numbers and severity of floods. Remember the Rhine flood in Europe a few years back? For most of its length the mighty Rhine now runs down an artificial channel, and the banks are lined with concrete. The water has no place to go… except over the banks, and into the millions of homes in the river valley. The American plains used to be dotted with swamps, which were drained to make way for farmland (and, admittedly, because skeeters are a bitch). Now they’re not around to soak up excess water when there’s too much rain or the snow melts too fast. The result is startled looking cows being airlifted out of a flood zone, film at eleven.
Fuck with nature and she fucks back. You don’t need to be a touchy-feely crunchy granola type like yours truly to notice this.
[crotchety old man voice]I remember the Great Flood of '93…[/crotchety old man voice] I was living in Lincoln at the time. While we escaped the floods, the surrounding area was pretty much submerged.
But now I’ve moved to England, where of course we never have any flooding. :rolleyes:
Actually, the water tables are getting so high, there are several new “lakes” that have formed (not from runoff, but from new springs), and one river that has been dry for 50 years is now running again…down the main street of some village.
Since 1993, Davenport has spent $1.1 million dollars to buy 49 homes in flood prone areas.
It has enacted ordinances that set strict conditions for constructions of homes and businesses in the 100 year flood plain.
The council considered a flood wall in 1984…but this was at the height of a local farm related recession. The estimated cost then in 1984 of a levee/dike system was $34 million…with the city required to pick up 12 million of that.
The implication that Davenport has sat by waiting for the feds to rescue them…and refusing to anything itself is silly.
The article goes on to suggest the problems associated with a floodwall.
I’m not automatically opposed to flood walls or levees, but the suggestion of FEMA and some of the media seems to be that Davenport has been sitting idly by waiting for the feds to bail them out of every flood related mess. The truth, of course, is somewhat more complicated.
ok - beagledave, please do you have an explanation for the guy who chose not to purchase flood insurance at all? (and we’ve already heard and recognized the concept that it wouldn’t necessarily cover everything).
I was in Columbia, SC when Hugo roared through in the fall of 1989. Afterwards, the news helicopters flew over the coast, showing us the flooding and devastation wreaked on all the yuppie vacation homes.
For some reason, I had a hard time dredging up any sympathy.
Along our seacoasts, I think we should define a zone including everything within a quarter-mile of the mean high-tide mark. Within that zone, Federal aid pays for relaocation (to outside the zone) only - and we phase that out over 25 years, paying 100% of the relocation costs for a disaster this year, 96% next year, 92% the year after, until we get down to zero. After that, inside the zone you’re on your own.
That would have the multiple benefits of (1) getting our government out of the business of subsidizing the owners of some of the most sought-after land in this country - the oceanfront; (2) it would reduce the political pressure to prevent the natural movement over time of beaches and barrier islands; and (3) (Hi, Opal!) it would make it much easier to restore public access to the USA’s coastlines.
And I’d go for a similar policy (with a smaller setback zone, maybe 500 feet) along all navigable bodies of water inland. If you can get private insurance, then build as close as you like, but don’t scarf up the most desirable oceanfront/waterfront locations, put up your ‘keep off’ signs, and then ask the rest of us to bail you out when the flood waters visit.
IOW, they wanted us taxpayers to maintain/rebuild their private beach.
Well of course that’s a different situation than what FEMA was referencing in Davenport.
Without knowing the particulars of that guy’s situation…what kind of flooding he gets (for example, if all his flooding is seepage coming up, than flood insurance would probably not cover ANY losses), I can’t give a specific answer.
If his house is in a flood plain, with flooding on an annual basis…then obviously counting on an annual governement bailout is silly. I suspect that the number of these kinds of situations (homeowners refusing to buy meaningful flood insurance, but wanting the guvment to rescue them yearly) ts rather small.
I certainly AM in favor of relocation/buyout of houses that perpetually flood because of their proximity to the river, which is what was done here in Davenport.
The official Quad-City Times very cool Flood Website. http://www.qctimes.com/flood2001/index.html I love the Flood Cam. (Yeah, I know Dave already posted a couple of stories from here, but this is the Home Page, with the Index.)
And somebody wanted to know huccome they don’t buy flood insurance? For the same reason people don’t buy other kinds of insurance–they don’t want to spend the money, and they think, “it won’t happen to me”, and finally, they think, “If anything does happen, there’s always Uncle Sam.”
[sub]heh i know jarbaby wanted to hear me say that[/sub]
Sorry to ruin a pit rant with a flood update…but wtf
The bad news is that the flood crest will stay at 22 feet for a couple of days before very slowly receding. The good news is that the weather is nice (no rain or high winds) and the sand bag levees in Davenport seem to be holding firm.
The other good news (from my perspective) is that FEMA boy decided to shut his pie hole until AFTER this mess settle down a bit. From a Reuters story…
"Yerington said he was alerted around dawn on Wednesday that Allbaugh wanted to make
peace and delay further discussions of permanent flood protection until after the waters
recede. Afterward, he said the two had a nice'' conversation and were on a first-name
basis.’’
I guess better late than never to get a clue…
Just have to ask, as a former Davenport resident: What kinds of “tourism” are going to be ruined by a floodwall? The Bix Beiderbecke Festival? Underwater Class A minor league baseball? Guided tours at the Caterpillar plant?
If the big concern is fewer riverboat gamblers, it seems that no natural force on earth could stop those people.
Galveston built a seawall after the 1900 hurricane*. And the tourists still come.
*not that it will stop the entire island from washing into the Gulf the next time a monster storm comes through.
and you come in here all smilin’ and helpful…DAMN YOU DAVE, DAMN YOU :: shaking fist ::
Seriously, I hear the river’s goin’ down…so I’m glad to hear it. I don’t actively wish harm to anyone in Iowa…except that one guy…you know him…the one with the…teeth…grrr :: shaking fist again ::
But seriously, my beagle hates water of any sort…how does yours like it?
My beagle hates water also (Although she does OK when we give a bath in the shower…)
And we ALL hate that guy with the teeth…
The river level is basically still the same (will not go below flood stage until late May)…dikes and levees are still holding it seems. FEMA boy came to town today though…
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010426/ts/weather_floods_dc_26.html
``I’d like to say congratulations, quite frankly, to the Quad Cities area and folks up and down the Mississippi. They have learned their lessons from the ‘93 flood. They were prepared … to handle this in a much better fashion,’’ Allbaugh told reporters at an outdoor news conference held beside the flood waters.
and
Allbaugh said he was proud of volunteers ``busting their posteriors’’ to ward off the river with countless sandbags and round-the-clock monitoring of strained levees.
As to the issue of a federally funded flood wall for Davenport, which has resisted such a step because it would damage riverfront aesthetics, that discussion would come later, Allbaugh said.
``I’m here to listen and learn,’’ he said.
and oh yeah…this nice little tidbit :
“According to proposed legislation in Congress, federal government outlays for California earthquakes and Florida hurricanes have been far larger than aid spent on the three major Midwestern floods of the past eight years. Overall U.S. spending on domestic natural disasters was approaching $100 billion over the past decade.”
Can we please make it fuck you DAVENPORT, not fuck you IOWA? Dubuque, e.g., has a flood wall. But, then again, by absorbing the flood, Davenport has made it a bit easier on those downstream.
Maybe it should be fuck the Army Corps of Engineers. The Mississippi by her nature is a wide, wandering river, naturally bordered by wetlands and flood plains. Bordering her with levies, dredging her channels to make the waters run deep and swift, and damming her in a misguided attempt to hold back the floods has only pissed her off. The rains will still fall, and she will still swell, and the only sensible thing for puny humans to do is move to higher ground.
(Although she does OK when we give a bath in the shower…)