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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Does anyone have links to flood zones for the Houston metropolitan areas that are less complex than fema?    https://snmapmod.snco.us/fmm/document/fema-flood-zone-definitions.pdf  Flood insurance policy -zone x least risk- building 250,000 deductible 1250,  contents 100,000 deductible 1250.  Annual premium $675.  I wonder what is charged in other zones.

We once looked at real estate in an area that had flood retention ponds, marshes, gates for spillways and various flood insurance rates.  1 block over from the spillway was stuff in X.   Flat land.  The same rate.   I guess think of it as a very mini-Houston area.   So this article in the Washington Post quotes people [and there are also comments] how they never thought their neighborhood would flood.   https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/we-never-thought-this-area-would-flood-neighbors-races-to-evacuate-as-houston-reservoirs-spill-over/2017/08/29/8a6a6f40-8cef-11e7-8df5-c2e5cf46c1e2_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_harveyreservoir-8pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.0bd82b3e3ead#comments

So should the Federal Government allow rebuilding in the same locations?  Should rebuilding be done only on areas that did not flood and in denser housing?

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The federal government does not have that much authority over local development. The flood insurance program is a partnership with local governments that provides flood insurance coverage in exchange for smuggling in some federal rules, but the political dynamic is heavily in favor of the local governments, so the federal government could not prohibit development there, they can only try to regulate elevation and building requirements. Flood insurance is mandatory only if the structure has a federally-backed mortgage and is located inside the 1% risk area. In summary, all of this risky development is driven by local decision makers and the federal government's influence is from a program that almost no one in Congress even understands. They just complain about the NFIP debt but it is not designed to build up billions of dollars of capital reserves to cover something like Katrina.  [/quote]

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