To listen to the media, you would think that the extreme flooding in Houston caused by Hurricane Harvey is a very rare, 1000+ year event for Houston. But based on info in the referenced article, Houston seems to be prone to extreme flooding imo, corrections welcome.
What disturbs me from the article is this paragraph.
"But, with our federal insurance system, things are different. Cities like Houston do not bear the cost of safety versus the benefit of risk abatement. Instead, of the city bearing the cost of reducing its margin of safety, the federal government is expected to bail the city out when natural disasters occur, in terms of rebuilding roads, highways, bridges and other public infrastructure [emphasis added]."
In a nutshell, it looks like the City of Houston's approach to dealing with chronic flooding is to let federal insurance (arguably a good idea but unconstitutional until the states choose to appropriately amend the Constitution imo) clean up any messes, as opposed to limiting damage by maintaining reservoirs dedicated to limiting damage, the reservoirs dedicated in 1935 later sacrificed for other purposes, corrections welcome.
"4. The issuing of a policy of insurance is not a transaction of commerce within the meaning of the latter of the two clauses, even though the parties be domiciled in different States, but is a simple contract [emphases added] of indemnity against loss.” —Paul v. Virginia, 1869. (The corrupt feds have no Commerce Clause (1.8.3) power to regulate, tax and spend for INTRAstate insurance purposes imo.)
In other words, seemingly thanks to questionable federal involvement in flood planning, Houston chose to be a flood fighter, not a flood preventer (firefighter versus fire preventer).
But also consider that if the feds weren't draining local and state taxes in the form of unconstitutional federal taxes, taxes that Congress cannot justify under its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers, then cities like Houston might consider the costs of flood prevention to be less of a burden.
"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States."—Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
As a side note to the scope of the federal government's powers concerning insurance, the express power of the feds to coin money (1.8.5) arguably gives the power to provide FDIC insurance associated with bank accounts. Corrections, insights welcome.
Also, the 17th Amendment is getting honorable mention with respect to damage and loss of life as a consequence of Harvey since feds stuck their big noses into Houston flood planning with no clear constitutional authority to do so imo.
In economics, we have a concept called “unintended consequences.” We can and should learn from what are - only in hindsight - mistakes.
It is good and politically inevitable that federal disaster relief responds to the immediate need (to save lives) and then helps with reconstruction. But, this sets up a system of “heads I win, tails you lose,” in terms of building in fragile places and in terms of compromising risk abatement.
In the case of Houston, it’s hard to be judgmental when they have invested so much in water control. 40 inches is, after all, an historical high. How do you balance the chance of 40 inches versus adding to the capacity of your water control system?