That's a lot of territory. Never has the damage been so great. The question is, are the people going to come back? I don't think anybody really knows.
We've seen that when you have lots of them (dams), they're not easy to inspect and the specifications tend to be not quite at the same level as those for large dams.
It gives scant attention to environment and social costs of the kind we saw in the eyes of the displaced families
In spite of 70 years of federal flood control efforts and nearly 40 years of federal flood insurance, the costs of flooding continue to rise and there is no federal policy to provide direction for future actions.
The very fact that we don't know how vulnerable we are to floods across this country ought to be worrisome, ... We need to find that out and then act to do something about it.
We said if you don't need to develop in a flood plain, don't do it, ... We had top talent working on that report, a bunch of very smart people.
Many of the recommendations went into the 'too hard' box and floated in a bureaucratic malaise until the memory of the flood faded away,
Communities around the country continue to be at risk.
Local land decisions later result in cries for federal help. Does that make sense? No.
It is an important part of the U.S. economy, and it's even more important in the developing world. You have to be able to provide water for agriculture.
