Disaster or Human Folly in Florida?
The recent storm in Florida has me thinking of the disaster that is
federal emergency management. Not that I have any complaint about FEMA
and how they operate. My issue is at a policy level.
For quite some time it has been clear to me that there should be a
distinction between unlikely disasters and probable disasters. The
poster boy of this is flooding in the Mississippi basin. Every few
years we are treated to the site of people filling sandbags,
submerged houses, people on rooftops refusing to be evacuated, etc. Why are
all those houses where they are? It's great farmland. Why is it great
farmland? It's very rich in nutrients from the alluvial mud that
periodically gets dumped on it when the Mississippi river
floods. Oh. Shouldn't these people live on higher ground, or build on
stilts, or something, and just farm in the flood basin? The obvious
response to that is: 'Why do the liberals always want government to
tell people how to live their lives?'
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