These national floods are frustrating. What, if anything, can be done to prevent them?

[brentspeak]

After all these thousands of years of civilization, it seems like humans are still at the mercy of floods. Have there been any kinds of recent engineering breakthroughs in regards to flood prevention?

[Ian David]

1. Preserve wetlands, for one thing. Maintain and update levees.

Fight Global Warming.

Build elevated homes.

Design and plan communities with flood control in mind, rather than building first and then throwing levees around them.

[NashVegas]

2. Move to Higher Ground

[Warpy]

7. That's actually the cure

but businesses depend on waterfronts and the well to do love to look out the picture window and past the designer lamp to water.

Plus, the most fertile farmland is usually on the flood plain.

There is nothing to do about flooding but embrace the fact that it is going to occur eventually and plan accordingly.

[NashVegas]

8. I'm Becoming a Bit of a Fatalist, I Guess

But running around trying to stop everything bad from happening is a sure way to induce mass hysteria, is it not?

[maxsolomon]

3. Shit Happens

these are 500-year flood events. like designing a skyscraper to withstand the impact of a jet airliner at top speed, prevention is impractical & nearly impossible.

[Kindigger]

11. Wade a minute

I lost everything in the 500 year flood that happened in 1993. :shrug:

[maxsolomon]

17. in this area of IOWA?

i've heard that the severity of this flood is unprecedented in the history of anglo settlement in Iowa.

i could be wrong.

climate change is distorting the frequency with which "500 year flood events" are going to occur. in Seattle, we've had "100 year" rainstorms 3 times in the last 5 years.

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. They are 500 year floods that are happening every 20 years

Can we at least rename them?

[Mz Pip]

4. Some, not all,

might have been prevented or at least minimized if we put some effort into maintaining our infrastructure. Dams and levees are often in a state of disrepair.

We've got a disaster waiting to happen in CA. There are over 600 miles of levees protecting areas of the central valley from flooding. There was talk of doing something about fixing some of them after Katrina but I doubt anything has come of it. If enough of those give way, the central valley would sustain major flooding. It's not densely populated but there but the agricultural losses would be devastating.

BUt tax cuts are more important. Go figure.

[Ichingcarpenter]

5. A Giant Wall Across the Canadian Border to Prevent Cold Air Coming in

and mixing with Warm Air.

Sarcasm aside ......... This is climate change cause by man made pollution
so in the long range work on that.

India just got hit by typhoon that beat 150 year old records on total rain fall.

[whistle]

6. Of course, but eight years of BushCo idiot-assity and war spending has denied

....modern infrastructure investments and technology to prevent these sorts of events as well as much waterway mismanagement.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/06/science/06tech.html

http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/freshwater/problems/infrastructure/floods/index.cfm

[leftofthedial]

9. preserving wetlands and floodplains is a good start

but really we can't prevent floods anymore than we can prevent drought.

We can keep repukes out of office though, so the consequences might be dealt with more effectively.

[spanone]

10. hold the corps of engineers to a high standard and enforce it.

[The2ndWheel]

12. Find a way to exist outside of existence

[islandmkl]

13. stop the gays from being gay, send the heathens to the nearest church, convert the wicked,...

hell, just call the good rev. haggee and get his advice...

establishing a STRONG CHRISTIAN SOCIETY will go a LOOOOOONG WAY to stopping all these weather-related/induced calamities....

hey, it's just 'god' doing his thing to the non-believers and blasphemers among us...

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. They need to stop building those huge reservoirs upriver

especially on the Missouri River. While I would hate to deprive North and South Dakota of their right to enjoy water sports, those reservoirs are very problematic for those of us downriver and played a role in our flooding in 93.

[devilgrrl]

16. Grow more trees?

Or do they cause too much pollution? :eyes:

[AlinPA]

18. Have Pat Robertson tell God to knock it off. nt