I generally don’t like government intervention in the marketplace.
But this event seems like a tragedy and I hope the government steps in to moderate the damage so that these communities can recover and not face permanent loss of their way of life. That would be bad for the country.
I heard on the local radio this morning (I live just outside of Omaha) that state government is estimating at least 1.5 billion from what they have already assessed in damage just to ag and that they are expecting that the losses will exceed $2 billion once they get the ag damage tallied up. That does not count all the monetary damage to homes and infrastructure. I have heard in the news media that damage total will also exceed a billion dollars. Lots of small towns are trashed and will most likely be unlivable for months with no available water or sewer. Several medium sized cities have been severely impacted as well.
If we have another wet spring and early summer like 2011, the Missouri could be flooded again for months. This could be the gift that keeps on giving, unfortunately.