The Nation's Responses To Flood Disasters: A Historical Account
The Nation's Responses To Flood Disasters: A Historical Account
The Nation's Responses To Flood Disasters: A Historical Account
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52<br />
<strong>The</strong> Nation’s <strong>Responses</strong> to <strong>Flood</strong> <strong>Disasters</strong>: A <strong>Historical</strong> <strong>Account</strong><br />
continued through at least fiscal year 1987, the last year for which information was<br />
available. 133<br />
<strong>The</strong> USGS maintained a network of nearly 7,000 stream gages nationally. <strong>The</strong>se<br />
gages provided the actual stream flow history from past floods; data which is critical in<br />
predicting future flood events when mapping flood hazard areas.<br />
National Weather Service<br />
<strong>The</strong> National Weather Service (NWS) used USGS stream gage data, combined<br />
with predicted rainfall and/or snowmelt to forecast flood stages and provide flood<br />
forecasts and warnings to communities and citizens. <strong>The</strong> NWS also tracked the paths of<br />
hurricanes and other coastal storms and issued forecasts and warnings. <strong>The</strong>se warnings<br />
often resulted in population evacuations from threatened areas and, in some instances, the<br />
relocation of damageable property from harm. Despite large increases in population<br />
living in or near riverine and coastal flood hazard areas, the number of deaths due to<br />
flooding essentially remained constant over the last half of the century. This was due to<br />
greatly improved warnings from the NWS as a result of both technology and process.<br />
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency<br />
Representatives of the EPA’s Office of Wetland Protection provided the Federal<br />
Interagency <strong>Flood</strong>plain Management Task Force with an increased understanding of the<br />
importance of natural resources and the functions that floodplains provide. <strong>The</strong> wetland<br />
protection office sponsored or actively participated in a number of workshops throughout<br />
the country on this subject. EPA’s other contributions include<br />
• supporting adoption of a second floodplain management goal, preserving and<br />
restoring the natural resources and functions of floodplains, in the 1994 report on A<br />
Unified National Program for <strong>Flood</strong>plain Management,<br />
• preparing a well-constructed guide for local officials on protecting floodplain<br />
resources, 134 and<br />
• promoting river restoration and integrating floodplain and wetland management<br />
programs in conjunction with the ASFPM and the Association of State Wetland<br />
Managers.<br />
133 Ibid.<br />
134 Federal Interagency <strong>Flood</strong>plain Management Task Force, Protecting <strong>Flood</strong>plain Resources: A Guidebook for Communities (Smardon and Felleman, FEMA<br />
publication 268, 1996).