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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<strong>The</strong> 1990s: Disaster Assistance Prevails 85<br />
<strong>The</strong> study also noted the increased capability of local officials to manage their<br />
floodplain programs along with the growing acceptance of the need to regulate land use.<br />
A number of states reported a tremendous increase in local requests for technical<br />
assistance in understanding and applying technical studies in carrying out local floodplain<br />
management programs. But the apparent trend was not universal, tempered by strong<br />
property rights movements in various parts of the nation.<br />
ASFPM’s 1995 state activity survey<br />
<strong>The</strong> latest ASFPM survey of state and local programs was conducted in 1995 and<br />
was also based on information from a questionnaire mailed to the state NFIP<br />
coordinators. 188 <strong>The</strong> report described a number of disturbing trends since 1992 that<br />
reversed some of the continuous advances since the late 1960s. State floodplain<br />
management programs faced challenges in budget, organization, and authority that<br />
threatened their ability to be full, active partners with the federal government and local<br />
communities in reducing flood losses. <strong>The</strong> report noted that this was particularly<br />
alarming considering the number of flood disasters in the nation during the previous three<br />
years. <strong>The</strong> Association’s report concluded that erosion of state capability appeared to<br />
result from one or a combination of the following initiatives:<br />
• Legislative dilution. Property rights advocates and other special interest groups were<br />
getting proposals introduced in some state legislatures that would relax or eliminate<br />
state regulations designed to reduce flood losses. <strong>The</strong>se sorts of regulations, by<br />
necessity, restrict locational decisions or development standards.<br />
• Budgetary restrictions. Some state floodplain management programs were being<br />
constrained or reduced in effectiveness by the loss of funding. <strong>The</strong> net effect was an<br />
inability to enforce regulations and/or assist local governments.<br />
• Organizational dissection. State agencies with regulatory functions were being<br />
reorganized or, in some cases, eliminated. This action scattered regulatory authority,<br />
technical personnel, and funding among several agencies. <strong>The</strong> result, again, was loss<br />
of capability to ensure sound land use decisions and an inability to help local<br />
governments reduce flood risks.<br />
<strong>The</strong> report noted that the impetus for these changes probably laid in the desire to<br />
reduce the size of government, cut back on the cost of government operations, or reduce<br />
government regulation that citizens believed impinged on their property rights. <strong>The</strong><br />
report went on to state that “left unchecked, this trend of failing to address hazards will<br />
mortgage our children’s economic well being by guaranteeing the escalation of future<br />
disaster costs. <strong>The</strong> next triennial report will reveal whether this trend has continued or<br />
abated.” 189 <strong>The</strong> 1995 survey was conducted around the period of a conservative political<br />
188 <strong>Flood</strong>plain Management 1995: State and Local Programs, Association of State <strong>Flood</strong>plain Managers, Inc.<br />
189 Ibid., Foreword.