The Nation's Responses To Flood Disasters: A Historical Account

42
The Nation’s Responses to Flood Disasters: A Historical Account
also undertook numerous activities that became important in addressing flood-related
issues. 105
The Bureau of the Budget assigned responsibility to the WRC to follow-up on
the 1966 House Document 465 recommendations. 106 The WRC also became
instrumental in preparing Executive Order 11296, which was issued in 1966. As cited
earlier, the WRC also revised and distributed the Flood Hazard Evaluation Guidelines
for Federal Executive Agencies in 1969 (see Chapter 3, “The Corps’ Expanding Role”).
Through its hydrology committee, the Council began work in 1966 on determining the
best methods of flood frequency analysis. It published the committee’s efforts in 1967 as
Bulletin No. 15, A Uniform Technique for Determining Flood Flow Frequencies. The
WRC adopted the techniques presented in the bulletin for use in all federal planning
involving water and related land resources, and recommended their use by state and local
government and private organizations. Efforts to improve the recommended
methodologies continued, and in 1976, the WRC published an extension and update as
Bulletin 17, Guidelines for Determining Flood Flow Frequency. A second revision,
published in 1981 as Bulletin 17B, 107 is the guide used by practically every government
agency conducting flood frequency studies.
JON KUSLER
ASFPM File Photo
In 1968, the WRC contracted the University of
Wisconsin’s Center for Resource Policy Studies to
prepare a study on using regulations to guide
adjustment of individual land uses to meet flood
threats and avoid flood damages. Jon Kusler and Doug
Yanggen, the principal investigators, were attorneys
on the Center’s faculty. Kusler, a person of
noteworthy ability and energy, had worked
cooperatively with Tom Lee, Wisconsin Department
of Natural Resources, on a number of projects while at
the university. The WRC published the first volume
of the report Regulation of Flood Hazard Areas to
Reduce Flood Losses in 1971. 108 The report explored
selected issues in the regulation of private and public
land uses to reduce flood losses and presented valuable
draft statutes and local ordinances for regulation of land uses in riverine and coastal flood
hazard areas that a number of states and localities subsequently used. The WRC
published the second volume in 1972, with Kusler as the principal author. 109 This
volume explored in more detail techniques of regulating subdivision of lands in flood
105 Floodplain Management in the United States: An Assessment Report, (Federal Emergency Management Agency, Washington, DC, 1992), pp. 7-2 to 7-4.
106 See "Bureau of the Budget Task Force on Federal Flood Control Policy" in Chapter 3 of this report for more on House Document 465.
107 Guidelines for Determining Flood Flow Frequency (Bulletin 17B of the Hydrology Committee, U.S. Water Resources Council, 1981).
108 Regulation of Flood Hazard Areas to Reduce Flood Losses, (vol. One, Parts I-IV, U.S. Water Resources Council, 1971).
109 Ibid., (vol. Two, Parts V-VI, 1972).