Memphis Flood and Other Disasters

 Submitted by Good Ole Boy/Jim

  There will always be floods, fires and hurricanes. Should lives and homes be lost because of stupidity? There are just some places where homes and businesses should not be built.

  The flooding in Memphis Tennessee is a real tragedy for many people, it is the 10th highest water mark in their records. So it has flooded before and often. There are things called bluffs. They can be seen on either side of a river, sometimes miles away. They rise in elevation like the side of a hill then flatten up on top. The area between the bluffs is called a river bottom. This area floods. Most cities and towns flooding are in river or creek bottoms. At one time people had the sense to not live in river bottoms, they lived up on top of the bluff. They expected anything built near the water to be flooded and built accordingly. Now is not the case. Levees give some of these areas safety from floods but even they can fail as we saw years ago when the Mississippi was at a record book flood stage and in New Orleans after Katrina. Unscrupulous builders and ignorant home buyers cost taxpayers and increase home insurance rates for all.
 
Flooding is not the only thing that we all pay for. When you see houses burning in the California hills you will also see brush and trees burning. Species such as Monterey, Bishop, and Knobcone pines have adapted to produce pine cones which hold seeds locked by a resinous coating that is melted away by fire.  Other species of plants produce seeds which lie dormant in the seedbed and will germinate only after a fire heat-treats their seed coat and removes duff from the top soil. Many of these are in the California hills. Does it seem smart to build houses in areas that have plants that have adapted to have fire to propagate? Some of the houses in these areas are worth millions and insurers take a big hit when they burn.

    Along the East coast and Gulf coast there are barrier islands and are unconsolidated masses of sand, rocks and mud only slightly above sea level. Hotels and beach front houses are on many of them. Storm surges and hurricanes decimate the buildings and can remove large chunks of the islands. Building on them is a gamble that good poker players would avoid.

  All these cost taxpayers and insurers tens of millions to billions each year. All homeowners with insurance pay higher premiums to pay for these losses. More importantly are unnecessary loss of lives that occur.