Many Midwest Homeowners Reject FEMA Flood Buyouts, Despite Benefits

April 19, 2010

  • April 19, 2010 at 2:35 am
    US A says:
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    But do these people buy flood insurance or do I continue to pay for them to rebuild each time they flood out?

    No Flood Insurance, no money from the US tax payers. Then see how fast they sell out.

  • April 19, 2010 at 3:15 am
    Just a thought says:
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    I have to agree. While the article says that they may have some time of flood insurance, some of them don’t, so the taxpayers (FEMA) are the ones paying for them to rebuild.

  • April 19, 2010 at 3:21 am
    TxLady says:
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    I understand being emotionally tied to your home. However, it is not up to the tax payers who subsidize flood insurance to have to bail you out over and over. Two large loss payments should be plenty if the government then comes and offers to buy you out at a fair price , no lowballing. If you say no, you are on your own. No FEMA aid, No low cost government loans, no government supported flood insurance. That’s it, it’s over, move or take the risk yourself. It can’t be pleasant to keep getting flooded over and over, why woud you stay when offered a viable alternative?

  • April 19, 2010 at 3:24 am
    cookie says:
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    One word: Stupidity.

  • April 19, 2010 at 3:39 am
    gratefully West says:
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    And this is exactly why I fled from Iowa as soon as I could: small-minded, befuddled elderly ignoramuses rule the landscape. At least their kids are all moving away as fast as they can – those houses will be vacant in another decade and we can move on reasonably…

  • April 19, 2010 at 4:53 am
    Cost Effective says:
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    If they say “no”, then that’s what they should get…no help from anyone except themselves. Now that’s cost effectiveness in action!

  • April 20, 2010 at 7:30 am
    So what your saying is... says:
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    The people that choose to live at the bottom of the wash & get flooded out EVERY year can pay a dollar in emergency flood preparedness and save the rest of the country $7 to $15 EVERY year??? Boy, I fell better now!!

  • April 20, 2010 at 11:56 am
    Douglas Shackelford says:
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    Everybody can’t live on the top of the mountain. Emotional and community investments shouldn’t be minimized because they’re not our investments. Flooding is not only inevitable, it’s increasing at an alarming rate (12 fold increase since 1950). Just because the flooding is inevitable the damage from flooding is not.

    New technologies and engineered solutions for emergency flood protection are now available for the first time in our countries history. For every dollar spent on emergency flood protection the savings are between $7 and $15, for each flood. Some of the new emergency flood protection systems are reusable for years. They cost less per use than buyouts, provide excellent protection and can be in place in weeks instead of years, with no environmental damage, no significant clean-up and no disposal requirements. With the minimal cost and the savings from clean-up and repair it ends up a net positive for the taxpayer and the communities. See one of the systems at http://www.floodwalls.com

  • April 20, 2010 at 1:43 am
    really?? says:
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    oh come on! There are some places where we are just not meant to build. Let’s stop fighting mother nature.

  • April 20, 2010 at 2:19 am
    Douglas Shackelford says:
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    Absolutely right, there are some places that are just not fit for human habitation. Those might include any area within maybe a mile of any coast or shoreline, places close to volcanoes, and areas prone to earthquakes come to mind. That means we shouldn’t have anyone living in Oregon, Washington State, California, most of the East Coast including New York City, Boston or within 300 miles of Cape Fear, in any direction.

    ~53% of the US population lives in a county protected by a levee and roughly 70% live in within just a few miles of either the East or West coastline. Should we move all of those folks to….where is it you want them to move to again?

    We’re not talking about 6 or 10 or even 100 houses out there in Iowa, we’re talking about over 200 million people in almost 900 counties and 43 different States.



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