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LARRY BUSS

A PERSPECTIVE ON FLOOD RISK MANAGEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES
WITH A FOCUS ON THE GULF COAST

How do you convince politicians to provide funding and policies for non-structural strategies for flood protection that have never been used before?

Today, flood damages are increasing as natural functions that reduce flooding are endangered. Acknowledgement of this fact arose during the 1970's when focus shifted from controlling and fixing nature, to assessing economic damage and the flood risk management of today, which addresses both national economics and the toll of human death. Buss shifted his work in the Corps from levees and channel divergence to nonstructural solutions when he realized that communities were built too low in places in with too high of a risk for flooding.

One salient problem is the disconnect between the policy and land-use decision makers and those who provide funding. While land-use decisions are made locally and are based on local economies and political processes, funding for structural solutions and post-disaster relief comes from taxpayers and government entities.

Reducing flood risk and implementing flood management strategies requires longterm support and planning, and a political environment where policy-makers are able to suggest extreme, unpopular and controversial ideas. While in the short term it is politically wrong to discuss ideas such as where building is and is not acceptable, in the longterm it is politically correct. Before Katrina, the Corps should have stated that the levees in New Orleans need to be de-certified and de-accredited due to their lack of stability; but, had the district engineer done so, politicians and the media would have framed it negatively. Even though Corps projects are federally funded, the responsibility to operate, maintain, repair, rehabilitate and replace is local. Locally, we must discuss strategies for reducing the risks of living in a flood plain and, where federal funding is nonexistent, shift reliance onto nonstructural solutions.

After Hurricane Betsy of 1965, the federal levee system was constructed with inaccurate assumptions and it created a false sense of security. The preceding trend of flood proofing buildings was lost to development. Overly confident developers who relied on the singular protection of the levees introduced slab-on-grade, single-story housing into the Gulf Coast. Elevated, amphibious housing is needed to compensate for what the levee system cannot hold back. Moreover, Buss suggests that the US Army Corps of Engineers should replace some areas wiped out by flooding with natural tree habitats as a natural barrier to break the storm surge. In cases like Hurricane Ike, the proper conclusion might be that damaged places might not be a good place to build.

1905 - New Orleans House on Piers	Current - Slab on grade development

The levee system and infrastructure that provide structural flood risk reduction need maintenance and repair, but funding that may be nonexistent is also required to do this. In this case, communities can shift some reliance to nonstructural, local solutions.

Today, the minimum requirement for the base flood elevation is still at the pre-Katrina benchmark of three feet above the highest adjacent existing grade. The Army Corps is not clearly communicating the risk of living in a floodplain, notably where it is and is not safe to build. In trying to return the tax base we may be too negligent of longterm risk reduction and safety. The basic flood risk equation Buss presents is that flood risk is equal to flood frequency multiplied by the consequences. The Corps usually acknowledges frequency, but fails to address long term consequences.

To better connect responsibility, politics and funding, Buss suggests:

1) The establishment of critical facilities in hospitals, schools or evacuation centers that can function during and after the event in order to allow the community to return,

2) Reform to federal programs to reduce competition between support for flood plain management and support for disaster centers,

3) Sustainability that focuses primarily on nonstructural solutions and encompasses public safety, economic development, water research and development, environmental quality, and flood risk management policy. Structural solutions should be secondary. This means developing without reliance on the levee system, and

4) Focus on consequences of flooding as much as frequency of flooding. With this comes communicating risk to people living in the flood plains, in the form of signs or a campaign or an icon, despite what it may do to property tax.

Buss concludes that we are building in locations where we should not, that sound flood risk management is more difficult to obtain than it should be because of the bias towards decisions reflecting short-term economic and political gain, that to achieve sound flood risk management we must incorporate nonstructural solutions, and lastly, that seeds must be planted continually until the ideas catch on.