Our vulnerability to flooding continues

The recent record and near record rains point up our culture's vulnerability to extreme natural events.

Relying on expensive taxpayer funded flood control projects is not wise. They fail, can be undersized, need maintenance and not everyone gets one but everyone pays for them.

Damage will occur in spite of our best efforts as long as we continue to find flood hazard areas attractive for business and residential use.

We need a behavioral shift away from intense occupation of floodplains to more passive and limited occupance of flood hazard areas.

How many more times will we read about Big Bend Drive or the Methodist Campground being inundated? Or the same basements being flooded and personal property lost time after time?

The answer? As long as we occupy these risk zones without adequate mitigative strategies such as elevation, floodproofing, utility protection, or removal and relocation.

The one issue that always arises after a big flood is the woefully inadequate flood insurance coverage.

Homeowners policies don't cover surface water flood damage, but the federal government's National Flood Insurance Program does.

This important protection is sold through local private insurance agents and covers buildings and their contents (if purchased separately) and is available throughout any community participating in the program, not just in the high risk flood hazard zone.

But insurance agents continue to inform their clients that it is not available or won't cover basements or it is too expensive or it isn't valid unless the president declares a federal disaster area (all incorrect).

The direct result of this insurance agent ignorance is tens of thousands of dollars worth of uninsured flood damage.

Unless and until insurance agents accept responsibility for educating themselves and hence their customers, this cycle will continue.

David Schein

Mount Prospect