Comments on: Follow Up to Flood Policy Presentation http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/?p=4027 Wed, 29 Jul 2009 22:36:51 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Steve Hemphill http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/?p=4027&cpage=1#comment-7251 Steve Hemphill Thu, 14 Dec 2006 11:10:03 +0000 http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheusreborn/?p=4027#comment-7251 The engineering behind the "100 year storm" aka 1% event is archaic and weakly correlated to reality. There are different time periods selected: http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/pcpnfreq.html yet each individual basin has a different theoretical "time of concentration" which is itself weakly related to reality. This fact is used by consultants and others wanting to build closer and closer to 100 year flood plains. Then, funding assistance to rebuild after being flooded out loses something in terms of reason and personal responsibility. Why should our taxes by used to repetitively bail out people who build in ... less than responsible ... locations? The engineering behind the “100 year storm” aka 1% event is archaic and weakly correlated to reality. There are different time periods selected:

http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/pcpnfreq.html

yet each individual basin has a different theoretical “time of concentration” which is itself weakly related to reality. This fact is used by consultants and others wanting to build closer and closer to 100 year flood plains.

Then, funding assistance to rebuild after being flooded out loses something in terms of reason and personal responsibility. Why should our taxes by used to repetitively bail out people who build in … less than responsible … locations?

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