Building in a floodplain
So much for emergency management.
More cabins and buildings at Camp Mystic — the tragic site of more than two dozen deaths in the Texas flood — were at risk of flooding than what the federal government had previously reported, according to new analysis from NPR, PBS’s FRONTLINE and data scientists.
Maps by First Street, a climate risk modeling company in New York City, show at least 17 structures in the path of flood waters, compared to maps produced by FEMA, highlighting a longstanding risk facing many Americans. The analysis also shows at least four cabins for young campers were in an area designated by FEMA as an extreme flood hazard, where water moves at its highest velocity and depth.
For decades, FEMA’s maps have failed to take rainfall and flash flooding into account, relying instead on data from coastal storm surges and large river flooding, even as climate change is supercharging rainfall intensity. Nationwide, First Street found more than twice as many Americans live in dangerous flood-prone areas than FEMA’s maps suggest, leaving many homeowners and even local officials unaware of the risk.
You’d kind of hope the federal agency would do better.
But in recent years, many properties affected by disasters are turning up outside FEMA’s floodplains. When Hurricane Helene struck western North Carolina last year, 98 percent of the damaged homes were not included in FEMA’s maps. This meant that not only were most homeowners unable to claim flood insurance, most of them had not been obligated to build in a way that could have helped them better survive the storm.
FEMA has known about this problem for years, but the agency lacks the mandate and funding from Congress to address it, according to Porter.
So we’re on our own.
Even when FEMA does mark the most dangerous flood areas, though, those warnings are not always heeded. At Camp Mystic, NPR found at least eight buildings, including four cabins used to house younger campers, are located inside what FEMA designates a floodway, the most dangerous area of the floodplain where water is expected to move rapidly during a storm.
Yes but they’re beside the river, where it’s pretty.
Who is in charge of Camp Mystic? Ah, I have discovered:
‘Camp Mystic is a private Christian summer camp for girls. Established in 1926, Mystic is nestled among cypress, live oak, and pecan trees in the hill country of west-central Texas on the banks of the beautiful Guadalupe River. Mystic is located near the geographical center of Texas, 18 miles northwest of Kerrville. The staff at Mystic strives to provide young girls with a wholesome Christian atmosphere in which they can develop outstanding personal qualities and self-esteem.
Each summer, Mystic challenges its campers to meet the Mystic ideals:
Be a better person for being at Mystic
Let Mystic bring out the best in them
Grow spiritually
Campers develop life-long friendships with other campers and counselors. They also learn incredible life skills. A summer camping experience at Camp Mystic is an important investment in your daughter’s education.’
Why put a camp in an area prone to flooding? I suppose because land is cheap there – though the place has, it seems, been there since 1926, and didn’t think of moving after the devastating flood of 1987, in which the Camp Mystic children were evacuated safely, though other teenagers from another such camp were not.
Many county and state agencies have GIS flood maps. Helene caused widespread flooding, including in my neighborhood here in Atlanta metro. The map in my county was very accurate, and the homes in the flood zones were indeed flooded. Maybe the FEMA maps could be updated to include hundred year events (which Helene was), which are becoming more unpredictable. Then again if FEMA is gutted by the current administration, what’s the point? The question then becomes should there be federal responses to localized national events, or should the individual states be left to fend for themselves? The federal government sends weapons and/or disaster relief (etc. to the tune of billions of dollars) to other countries, but can’t be arsed to help our own citizens?
twilight, part of the problem is that the government does help rebuild after flooding disasters. People are not being discouraged from living in a flood plain and will continue building there because the government will continue paying for the disaster. Of course, this doesn’t help anyone who is renting, and it doesn’t do much for those who are dead, but it does give relief to those who are rich enough to rebuild in the first place. If people have no disincentive to quit building in flood plains, they will just keep rebuilding there.
I’ve been assuming that the main reason for putting camps there is that it’s pretty. Rivers are an attraction as well as a threat, and the threat used to be less threatening.
I went to a university that was split in two by a river. Oxford and Cambridge are both on rivers. London grew up around a river, as did Paris, and Rome, and Florence, and Heidelberg, and and and
It was in the high and far off times when we hadn’t yet destroyed our own climate.
Yes ikn, for sure. Maybe if we outline hundred year floodplains and declare them national parks. This could be done through laws of eminent domain, but it would be cost prohibitive given the amount of private land that would have to be compensated for. Kruger National Park doesn’t allow permanent structures, which I think is a good idea as well. Probably not feasable here I know, just a thought.
Not to mention the beaches in the South with accompanying hurricanes and storm surges. They just keep rebuilding.
It definitely is pretty to live on a river. I almost bought a house with a view that put the Mississippi River almost in my living room, but it was so high it wasn’t in a floodplain…or at least, it wasn’t marked as a floodplain, which is beginning to look like it might not mean anything.
I once lived in a house in a floodplain, and had to get flood insurance. When the river started rising, we evacuated to my mother-in-law’s house. Even after it came to the top of the banks, it rained for three more days and it never flooded. It must have had a great discharge at its mouth.
I remember after Katrina, when Bush was bragging about how the government was going to rebuild (I think it was Trent Lott’s) house for him, and how he would go there and enjoy sitting on the porch enjoying the view. Meanwhile, thousands of people of color were shoved into the Astrodome, and never able to return home because they didn’t own the property, they were renting.
Yep, rivers are a draw, no question, just as lakes and oceans are. We’ve had more than one chat here about all those beach houses in California and New Jersey and Florida whose owners expect the citizenry to bankroll them now that insurers refuse to do so.
I feel like we, as a society, seem to have lost the previously well established concept of “uninsurable”. There were houses that were pointless to build because no one could afford to insure them against the obvious and frequent risks of fire, flood, volcanoes, etc, movies you couldn’t film with that movie star because his drug problems made him too unreliable, and so on. Where did that go?
And, furthermore, if they’re uninsurable that means they’re also DANGEROUS, so how about no?
Dangerous, absolutely. Wasteful too – all that time, effort, money, materials frittered away on a structure that’s not long for this world. It’s also wasteful and recklessly demanding of rescue efforts. Firefighters, swift water rescue teams, emergency shelters and so on are not free, and in the case of firefighters and rescuers, risk the lives of others. Surely the right to be rescued exists on a balanced consideration with the matter of the responsibility to not knowingly put oneself and one’s precious possessions at unnecessary risk?
See also: beach houses falling into the ocean.