Images and stories of the devastation wrought by the July 4 flood of the Guadalupe River in Texas will stay with many of us for a long time. There has been an outpouring of compassion and sorrow for those who have died, remain missing or have lost their homes and possessions. There has also been a healthy dose of scrutiny of the shortcomings in early warning systems, government response and evacuation efforts — some of which have been blamed on the Trump administration’s bludgeon of cuts across emergency services, weather reporting and scientific agencies.
But even with a flawless response, the storm that roared through that night would most likely have claimed many lives. The rest of us might now do well to look past the astonishment, sympathy or blame, and consider how to avoid or minimize similar hazards in the future. What happened in Central Texas is only the latest in a long series of horrific floods, and they’re getting worse. In Ellicott City, Md., a flood level expected only once in 1,000 years occurred twice in a three-year span, in 2016 and 2018. In 2022, flash floods in Kentucky displaced thousands of people who had no flood insurance. In February of this year, devastating floods occurred in Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee. We should no longer be surprised by the inevitable.
We are living in a new age of flooding. We can no longer deny the increasing danger posed by these floods. Nor can we afford to continue believing we have the solutions to stop or contain the rise of water. The best option to save American lives is reducing our vulnerability and exposure to these floods. That means preventing unnecessary new development on floodplains, and amping up efforts to help people move their homes from high-risk areas to safe territory.
This starts with the protection of floodplains, the natural areas that have been shaped over time to absorb floods when they occur. Human development on these spaces destroys their ability to absorb excess water. To prevent it, we must implement adequate zoning policies that limit construction there. This is the least costly option for preventing flood damages from getting worse.
Likewise, relocation of flood-prone homes to higher ground has been an important strategy for decades. But there is still a huge investment poured into trying to prevent flooding damage from occurring, building levees to try to keep floods away from our homes and using emergency relief checks and insurance subsidies to pay victims for losses after they occur. Billions of dollars are spent to protect those who have homes and businesses in flood zones — and then billions more are spent on recovery efforts when those protections fail. The Natural Resources Defense Council analyzed thousands of data points and determined that for every $1.72 FEMA spends helping people move away from the paths of floods, $100 is spent to rebuild properties. We are essentially paying people to stay.
Our response to floods has been inadequate, if not misdirected. And now, owing to the heating climate, floods will be growing irrevocably worse, more widespread and longer in duration. We’ve failed to halt the losses and the threats of the past. Lacking a major course correction, we’re destined to fail worse in the future.
The good news is that hundreds of programs across the nation have proved we can change that unfortunate fate. In the aftermath of Hurricane Agnes in 1972 — the most damaging flood in American history up to that time — Lycoming County, Pa., succeeded in getting all 52 of its local municipalities to implement zoning restrictions that discouraged development on floodplains. This initiative had no chance of enactment before the flood occurred, but succeeded when local leaders seized the moment and turned tragedy into opportunity. Today, spurred by a federal insurance program, more than 22,000 communities nationwide have adopted floodplain zoning to one degree or another, although in many cases the rules are weak or ineffectively enforced, which needs to be corrected.
Going further, communities including Nashville, Milwaukee and Tulsa, Okla., have enacted model programs to help people move beyond the danger zone. In North Carolina, Mecklenburg County officials improved the mapping of their floodplain and paid hundreds of people to voluntarily relocate. Residents there are now happy simply for their own safety when the rain falls.
Of course, not everyone who is vulnerable can move, and the impressive urban infrastructure of some flood-prone cities such as Sacramento or Memphis cannot be abandoned. People there will rely on the expensive reinforcement of levees and other defenses. But in many places across America floodplain development has been curbed, and the perils can be avoided or eliminated by floodplain protection and relocation of homes.
As I learned in the reporting of my book, only a small percentage of America’s acreage lies within 100-year floodplains, where there is an estimated 1 percent chance of flooding in any given year. We know where the danger lurks. We have choices. Americans move for all kinds of reasons, and to avoid a flood disaster is one of the better incentives to look for another place.
The water is going to rise. Floods are inevitable. But catastrophe is not. We need to get up and out of harm’s way. We need to give rivers the room they need to flow, especially in today’s world of a heating climate and intensifying storms. We know how to do this. We can afford to do this. What we lack is the political will. Let’s find it — before the next flood finds us.
Tim Palmer is a journalist, photographer and former land use planner. He is the author of “Seek Higher Ground: The Natural Solution to Our Urgent Flooding Crisis” and has worked on flooding issues for five decades.
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