High Water leads to Slippery Slope
Smithsonian Magazine (Nov-05) has a great article about the great flood of 1927 and it’s after effects on the country. When I Googled “1927 flood” I got 919,000 hits….WTF?
Well, it seems there were a number of floods around the country that year. The flood in the heartland, down the Mississippi, was the one that is described as the worst natural disaster to hit the US, until Katrina. Here is the timeline. What I found most interesting was this part of the article: Quote:
Half of the Blacks, after being shut out of private relief efforts, packed up and moved north to the cities Hoover used private corporations to help reconstruction. Sound Familiar? The call for government action by the people spured the federal involvment in peoples lives that has grown to the nanny state we have today. I wonder how this year's hurricanes will contribute to federal influence growth? :footpyth: |
failure=growth
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It's a positive feedback loop. It will cease when the government takes up 100% of the GDP, and will end in the following disasterous collapse. |
Randy Newman wrote Louisiana 1927 quite some time ago. It got some revived airplay after Katrina.
I liked it well enough to buy his greatest hits CD. |
bump
Wonder if we, as a whole, still feel that was a nanny state - compared to where we are apparently headed. |
That's also when blacks stopped voting republican. From history or A&E channel?
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ISTR that's also when the Corps of Engineers began to have an expanded mission. All at the behest of politicians, you understand.
The problem with flood control is that it's impossible. We can't 'control' floods. We'd be a lot better off leaving the floodplains to mother nature. Here's an interesting policy paper regarding the future of floodplain management. |
Username: Alluvial
Location: central Mississippi Sounds like this guy is gonna know about floods. I've read a couple of sources lambasting federal flood aid and insurance, because it is so badly worded that it basically encourages people to ignore flood risk when building, resulting in people building homes and towns in extremely flood-prone places. I believe in community helping each other, and that government is, or at least should be, simply the organised community, so I support government assistance to disaster victims. But that doesn't mean we should encourage people to stand in the way of danger. Duh. |
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Flood studies and all things hydrology/hydraulics are my line of work, so although I'll never know all of it, I'm working on getting a good grasp of it. Thanks for the vote of confidence. :blush: |
Hey, I never claimed to be a gynacologist ...
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Historically, towns and cities grew up along the waterways. Then the suburbs grew up around those towns and cities, so there is a lot of people living near the rivers. It would be a Herculean task to move them all.
And where are we going to get the food that's grown on those millions of acres of flood prone land, if nobody is allowed to continue their farms there? |
Farming, yes, but granting building approval and subsidised insurance for new developments, IMHO, no.
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We've done a fine old job of fucking up our flood systems over here in the UK. Floodplains you say? Oh well they'd be the bits we drained and banged housing on right?
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Many structures would benefit from simple elevation. Here is an article about a couple who had their home elevated 10 feet above the original grade. Although the home had suffered several floods, including 53 inches of water from Hurricane Georges, after the elevation it didn't, even from Katrina. Quote:
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