Fight with Nature and Lose Every Time

Classic examples of this are Hurricane Alley, the Shake, Rattle, and Roll earthquake states, the Wildfire Regions, and the Flood Plains. The fight is expensive, lasts a lifetime, and you will always lose.

Witness the devastation of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region—this whole area has been threatened time and time again by hurricanes and flooding, yet people continue to stick around, ignoring nature’s repeated warnings. New Orleans in particular has been under the specter of catastrophic flooding for quite some time, yet building goes on, and more residents move into low-lying areas. Insurance is a rarity down there, it would seem, judging by the numbers given out in the news: 1 in 5 homes are insured at all, and even less than that are insured for flooding. People who live hand-to-mouth live in the riskiest areas of all.

I’m sure the state as well as individuals are hoping FEMA will bail them out and pay for rebuilding, but I’m hoping FEMA does what they did when the Ohio River flooded its banks a few years ago—move the towns to higher ground and level the flood plain area, forbidding rebuilding. I’d like to see FEMA finally declare the New Orleans bowl to be uninhabitable, and level it. Water is a formidable force, and it will always seek its own level.

Once FEMA declares the area uninhabitable, it means the taxpayers are no longer on the hook for flood damages and rebuilding. Rich people have used the FEMA method for getting a new house year after year in hurricane-prone areas like the East Coast, and the rest of us are shouldering the burden for rebuilding their new digs through tax dollars. It’s time this stopped.

States share blame in this too, as they grant permits and allow construction to go on in areas obviously unfit for long-term habitation--solely for the property tax dollars. Anything to help fill the coffers…sheesh!

One day, down the road a ways, Los Angeles will also find itself dozens of feet under water due to its bowl-shape, and hopefully FEMA will declare it a total loss as well. When you step back and look at all the areas we populate and shouldn’t, you begin to realize the huge chunks of land that should’ve remained just that—land. There aren’t many places in this country that are safe for long-term living.

Some influential wannabes are blaming Bush and the EPA for this Gulf Coast disaster, but it was caused by our normal hurricane season weather patterns. I only wish we had control over the weather, just so we could use it to wake more people up to the danger they choose to live in, and get them to leave once and for all. I’m tired of paying tax dollars for everyone else’s preventable misfortunes…aren’t you?