@ai6yr I look at an apartment complex in Iowa when I first moved there where everyone had built 5 foot high shelves in their units with all their belongings and furniture on the elevated shelves. Apparently 2-3 feet of flooding was pretty normal in that part of town (and of course no discount on the rent for the flood risk).
@ai6yr
I knew some wealthy Texans who kept getting flooded out, and kept rebuilding.
Their opinion, "we get a new beach house!"
Compare to the poor folks who can't afford the bus ticket to evacuate 10' storm surge.
@ai6yr I've worked with FEMA models and they are very aggregate, 1-dimensional hydraulics based on 1-ft increments in the thalweg elevation, which, for really flat areas is not a lot at all. They also don't map the vast majority of streams, just main ones. 0.2% return interval = "1-in-500yr" storm. I wouldn't build there, but it's legal to do so. Listening to the people being interviewed, it sounds like classic NIMBYism. [We can't have more apartments because] "the crime rate is going to go up."
Those FEMA flood plain maps are hopelessly out of date. Here in our area, at least, the city has had to tear down some homes that were not in the official flood plain, but flooded so often it was beyond ridiculous. They are not keeping up with development and changing topography or runoff issues, and banks just go along with the official maps and then pretend to be surprised long after the developers have moved on to their next stupid project.
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