Sen. Mark Pryor and Rep. Marion Berry have been raising hell about new FEMA flood zone maps that could require more people in the Delta to have flood insurance. Now Pryor is trying to legislate politics into flood zone science. He says he wants to be sure flood zone maps are based on science, but he also wants them shaped by “community input.” That doesn’t sound like science to me.
Pryor and Berry seem convinced that science isn’t involved in new FEMA maps. Their evidence seems to be mostly conventional wisdom and the likelihood that it will cost their constituents money.
Pay now or pay later. See New Orleans for assurances about levee protection, even the finest the Corps of Engineers could build.
From January, a sad story by David Koon about the laxity of flood plain regulation in Arkansas and the problems it can cause.