The Trump Card...

Turtle

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... all residents in those areas should be required to buy coverage
, said Obama. <snicker>

If you've got a mortgage, the mortgage holder is probably going to require it. Although, they say only 17% of homes in Houston have flood insurance. That seems awfully low, so maybe a lot of mortgage holders down there don't require it for some reason.

But I think, even if you don't live in a flood prone area, you should probably have food insurance. If a water main breaks and damages your home and at least one other home in the neighborhood, flood insurance would cover that. If your neighbor's above-ground pool bursts, you're covered.

But the biggest thing is, thanks to the hubris of man thinking we can control water with dams and diversions to "control flooding," while that does reduce the frequency of smaller floods, when flooding does happen it tends to be far more widespread and damaging than would have otherwise occurred.

There are large sections of Houston that were spared from the devastating foods of Harvey, only to be inundated when water was released from reservoirs. Same thing in New Orleans when levies and pumps failed. The flooding a few years ago in Iowa and Kentucky wouldn't have happened if it weren't for the "flood control" efforts of the US Army Corp of Engineers.
 

OntarioVanMan

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I read Houston is a FREEDOM area.....zoning laws are non existent and they build wherever they please....no thought goes into drainage, green spaces that help absorb water...they build on known floodplains...how stupid is that?...they might be a great state, but not so smart....IMO
 

OntarioVanMan

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... all residents in those areas should be required to buy coverage
, said Obama. <snicker>

If you've got a mortgage, the mortgage holder is probably going to require it. Although, they say only 17% of homes in Houston have flood insurance. That seems awfully low, so maybe a lot of mortgage holders down there don't require it for some reason.

But I think, even if you don't live in a flood prone area, you should probably have food insurance. If a water main breaks and damages your home and at least one other home in the neighborhood, flood insurance would cover that. If your neighbor's above-ground pool bursts, you're covered.

But the biggest thing is, thanks to the hubris of man thinking we can control water with dams and diversions to "control flooding," while that does reduce the frequency of smaller floods, when flooding does happen it tends to be far more widespread and damaging than would have otherwise occurred.

There are large sections of Houston that were spared from the devastating foods of Harvey, only to be inundated when water was released from reservoirs. Same thing in New Orleans when levies and pumps failed. The flooding a few years ago in Iowa and Kentucky wouldn't have happened if it weren't for the "flood control" efforts of the US Army Corp of Engineers.

There should be NO building in known flood zones....especially spillway areas....thats just stupid...now they will just rebuild until the next time....army did the right thing, Houston did the wrong thing...IMO
 
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Turtle

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I read Houston is a FREEDOM area.....zoning laws are non existent and they build wherever they please..
That's not just Houston, that's Texas at large. That's how you get neighborhoods with house, house, house, Lowrider Wheels & Hubcaps, house, house, house.

It's how you get a fertilizer plant located in a West, TX residential neighborhood that explodes killing half the neighborhood.

no thought goes into drainage, green spaces that help absorb water...
Oh, there's plenty of thought that goes into it. The engineers that put the thought into it will tell you straight up that if you build a subdivision over there in that spot, there's no way to properly handle drainage to prevent flooding. People build there, anyway.

If you notice, people tend to cluster and live in the most interesting places, which tend to be the most beautiful places. And the most interesting and beautiful places also tend to be the most dangerous. Right next to volcanoes, rivers, oceans, lakes, etc. It's not a matter of if, but when.

There should be NO building in known flood zones..
OMG! You've just hit upon something that no one has ever thought about! :p

That's what the Army Corp of Engineers do - they turn flood zones into not flood zones by using dams and other means to divert water from flood zones. In reality, instead of those areas flooding a little bit every year, so often that people can't build there, they eliminate the annual flooding so people can build there. So when the floods do come, every 20 or 30 years, instead of being the annual few inches of water, it's several feet of a wallop.

In the areas along the Mississippi River, near the place where the Ohio River runs into it, if you want to build there today you'll have to do it with your own money, and you cannot buy flood insurance at any price.
 
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xmudman

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In the areas along the Mississippi River, near the place where the Ohio River runs into it, if you want to build there today you'll have to do it with your own money, and you cannot buy flood insurance at any price.

That explains why Cairo, IL is a ghost town. I'd never been there before, until a couple weeks ago when my GPS decided to show me the two lanes of the Midwest. I was shocked; I didn't expect to find a second Camden, NJ at the bottom of Illinois
 

Grizzly

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Now Fox had an interesting discussion..why should taxpayers pay to rebuild Houston?....especially those that had no flood insurance....condundrum
We shouldn't! Why should tax payers in SC, SD or anywhere else for that matter pay for property damage for individuals that CHOOSE to live in coastal areas?

You wanna live on the coast? Go at your own risk ...

Sent from my VS987 using EO Forums mobile app
 

JohnWC

Veteran Expediter
Now Fox had an interesting discussion..why should taxpayers pay to rebuild Houston?....especially those that had no flood insurance....condundrum
We shouldn't! Why should tax payers in SC, SD or anywhere else for that matter pay for property damage for individuals that CHOOSE to live in coastal areas?

You wanna live on the coast? Go at your own risk ...

Sent from my VS987 using EO Forums mobile app
What about tornado zones bad snow zones etc We need to start having certain required building codes for certain areas
 
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Grizzly

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And it's all Trump's fault! .... lol
Way off topic .... I'll continue this on the appropriate thread .....
 
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Turtle

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That explains why Cairo, IL is a ghost town.
It explains some of it, but Cairo has a very rich history. Almost all of it bad.

Cairo, IL, Wickliffe, KY, that area where the Ohio hits the Mississippi, that's my back yard. Because of the confluence of the two rivers people have been desperately trying to make Cairo into a real town for 200 years. It was incorporated as a town, with a bank, before anybody even lived there. That effort failed. They then tried two more times, including building a really big regional Post Office and Customs House, and putting a regional Court there. But it's too far away from everything, and it floods like all the time.

The entire town is completely surrounded by levees, which were originally built in the early 1800s and were heightened and strengthened after one flood in the mid 1800s, again after the 1927 flood, again after the 1937 flood, and again in the 1950s. But flooding is only a small part of the problems there.

There was a lot of trade that passed through there, but that was all diverted up river to Chicago when Grant took over the town as a headquarters during the Civil War (to supplement nearby Ft Defiance). After the War Cairo never recovered all of that trade.

When the railroad came though, there was a massive ferry business economy installed, as there were no bridges for trains or cars (no cars, either). The population swelled to like 17,000 people. They could ferry more than 40,000 railroad cars per month across the rivers.

But then in about 1890 the railroad bridge was completed. The ferry business was impacted, but ferries were still needed for horses and cars. Then one bridge across the Mississippi was completed in 1905, but that was into Cairo. But in 1929 and in 1937 the two bridges south of Cairo were opened, one across the Mississippi and one across the Ohio (which is very kewl if you've never driven it, as you cross one river, take a hard turn, and immediately start across the other river), which bypassed Cairo completely. Then barges started replacing steamboats, and the reasons for stopping in Cairo went away. Then the I-57 Bridge across the river pretty much did Cairo in, as there was no reason to go to Cairo at all. Ever. For any reason.

The population today is, I dunno, not even 3000 people.

In addition to all of that, there are problems in trying to force a town into existence in a place where it doesn't happen naturally and there is no genuine sustainable economy.

Then there's the racial problems that have more or less defined the town more than anything else. The White Supremacists, Antifa and BLM folks of today are all rank amateurs compared to the fine folks of Cairo's history. I'm sure there are books and countless Web pages on it all. When the population was about 15,000, more than 5,000 of those were black. So you'd think blacks would have a little say in what goes on. But no. Police brutality, economic opportunity, the same complaints then as now.

There were mob lynchings that happened often. One time the sheriff tried to sneak a suspected murdered out of town on a train, and a mob commandeered another train and caught up with them, brought the prisoner and the sheriff back to town, and hung the prisoner, and when the rope broke they just shot him, over and over and over. They also gave the sheriff a good talking to. He was so offended that he resigned and moved away. Of course, not wanting to be given the chance to break another rope with his own neck probably had something to do with it.

Blacks, meanwhile, would set fires, and when the fire and police would show up, snipers would pick them off. They eventually (in the 1960s) demanded black police and fire chiefs, a black mayor, and a 50/50 black/white representation on the city council. The carrot for these demands was peace, the stick was to simply burn the entire town down.

Around the same time many of the white citizens formed a citizens protection group called the "White Hats" cause they wore white construction helmets as their uniform. They were all deputized by the sheriff. All 600 of them.

The White Hat opposition was the Cairo United Front, composed chiefly of not White Hat members. They included the local chapter of the NAACP, various street gangs, and other people who were generally pissed off about being harassed and beaten daily by people wearing construction hats.

But Cairo has a lot of historic buildings and it's designated as a historic landmark. So there is that.

There's also a Trump Tower in Cairo.

OK not really, but it would be kewl if there was.
 

davekc

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I live on the coast but have insurance for it. Florida has little zoning in many areas. Stuff floods and you rebuild. Houston had a 1000 year flood but is still in a risky area for hurricanes. But you don't move everyone because we still need to service the industries that are there. Just how it is. As for rebuilding and who should pay, it is equal opportunity. ND and SD pay for Florida's hurricane madness and floods and Florida pays for ND and SD wild fires, blizzards and tornadoes.
 

OntarioVanMan

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Only experience I know was hurrricane Hazel that hit Toronto and the Humber River swept away whole streets... since then the whole river that cuts thru prime land in West Toronto is all park land managed by the conservation park authority.. never built on the plain again...
 
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OntarioVanMan

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I live on the coast but have insurance for it. Florida has little zoning in many areas. Stuff floods and you rebuild. Houston had a 1000 year flood but is still in a risky area for hurricanes. But you don't move everyone because we still need to service the industries that are there. Just how it is. As for rebuilding and who should pay, it is equal opportunity. ND and SD pay for Florida's hurricane madness and floods and Florida pays for ND and SD wild fires, blizzards and tornadoes.
I can understand rebuilding the infrastructure .... roads and bridges sewer systems water systems but not someone's home or paying their motel room for extended periods
 

Grizzly

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I live on the coast but have insurance for it. Florida has little zoning in many areas. Stuff floods and you rebuild. Houston had a 1000 year flood but is still in a risky area for hurricanes. But you don't move everyone because we still need to service the industries that are there. Just how it is. As for rebuilding and who should pay, it is equal opportunity. ND and SD pay for Florida's hurricane madness and floods and Florida pays for ND and SD wild fires, blizzards and tornadoes.

Equal? Really .... ?
I live in SC ... what funds are those tax payers sending this way?
 

davekc

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I live on the coast but have insurance for it. Florida has little zoning in many areas. Stuff floods and you rebuild. Houston had a 1000 year flood but is still in a risky area for hurricanes. But you don't move everyone because we still need to service the industries that are there. Just how it is. As for rebuilding and who should pay, it is equal opportunity. ND and SD pay for Florida's hurricane madness and floods and Florida pays for ND and SD wild fires, blizzards and tornadoes.

Equal? Really .... ?
I live in SC ... what funds are those tax payers sending this way?
You don't get any. lol. I don't know, quite a bit actually but this latest Irma hurricane could come right at Charleston. Think SC had to have some repairs recently from Matthew. Lot of damage just south in Savanah.
 
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Grizzly

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I live on the coast but have insurance for it. Florida has little zoning in many areas. Stuff floods and you rebuild. Houston had a 1000 year flood but is still in a risky area for hurricanes. But you don't move everyone because we still need to service the industries that are there. Just how it is. As for rebuilding and who should pay, it is equal opportunity. ND and SD pay for Florida's hurricane madness and floods and Florida pays for ND and SD wild fires, blizzards and tornadoes.
I can understand rebuilding the infrastructure .... roads and bridges sewer systems water systems but not someone's home or paying their motel room for extended periods

And I'd like to see exactly what types of homes we're talking about. What income levels do these home owners have? I imagine there will be tons of home owners, better off than most, that either have or will apply for assistance from FEMA. Are the individuals in lower income brackets getting assistance? Or are we subsidizing homes worth $300K & up? $500K & up?
 

Grizzly

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I live on the coast but have insurance for it. Florida has little zoning in many areas. Stuff floods and you rebuild. Houston had a 1000 year flood but is still in a risky area for hurricanes. But you don't move everyone because we still need to service the industries that are there. Just how it is. As for rebuilding and who should pay, it is equal opportunity. ND and SD pay for Florida's hurricane madness and floods and Florida pays for ND and SD wild fires, blizzards and tornadoes.

Equal? Really .... ?
I live in SC ... what funds are those tax payers sending this way?
You don't get any. lol. I don't know, quite a bit actually but this latest Irma hurricane could come right at Charleston. Think SC had to have some repairs recently from Matthew. Lot of damage just south in Savanah.

Case in point! I don't live near the coast. I astutely CHOOSE to live inland. I live 3-4 hrs away. I'm in Spartanburg ... high & dry. Screw the folks that live in Charleston! lol

Again, you live in those areas at your own risk.
 
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muttly

Veteran Expediter
I live on the coast but have insurance for it. Florida has little zoning in many areas. Stuff floods and you rebuild. Houston had a 1000 year flood but is still in a risky area for hurricanes. But you don't move everyone because we still need to service the industries that are there. Just how it is. As for rebuilding and who should pay, it is equal opportunity. ND and SD pay for Florida's hurricane madness and floods and Florida pays for ND and SD wild fires, blizzards and tornadoes.

Equal? Really .... ?
I live in SC ... what funds are those tax payers sending this way?
You have Hurricanes on the east coast. Let's hope Irma gets diverted back out to sea.
 
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