How Houston was left to drown under Harvey

[Warpy]

21. Yes, but that is hardly exclusive to Houston

This country is crammed full of marginal earthen dams that are waiting for one huge rainstorm to fail. Sadly, most of them will be allowed to fail because cheapskates in government won't spend the money to repair them.

As for building on wetlands, while that isn't allowed in most areas, we had our own little scandal over it, zoning laws and all. Some years ago, a developer wanted to cram as many houses as possible onto a parcel of land, so he filled in the arroyos and built houses on top of the fill. He got lucky for a couple of years, we were hit hard by drought and the monsoons fizzled and we didn't get more than a few flakes of snow. When the skies finally did open up, a few of those houses were destroyed. Cue big drama, some of which is still being fought over.

Mass. had the right idea for coastal properties, at least. Once beach erosion plus a big storm had destroyed a house, that was it. People couldn't rebuild on the same property. If they wanted to rebuild, they could take their insurance money and do it elsewhere. That should really be extended to wetlands and known frequent flood plains.

Still, there wasn't much to be done about this one, but it would have been nice had they thought more about evacuation strategy.