
Houston homeowners unaware that reservoir neighbourhoods are designed to flood - Geekette
https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/harvey-reservoirs
======
mabbo
In Ontario, you simply are not allowed to build in a flood plain. This is in
response to Hurricane Hazel in the 1950s, who's floods killed people.

Even further, if your home is destroyed in a major flood, you aren't allowed
to rebuild it- clearly, wherever you are it's not safe from flooding.

It's a very effective system. The only problems is has these days are A:
people who fight it because they bought property they want to develop, but
can't, and B: the fact that where flooding occurs is changing due to climate
change and geology/geography changes in the last 50 years.

Texas may want to consider such a system.

~~~
scarface74
That will never happen in Texas. The minute that someone tries to make a law,
people will start yelling about “big government” and “freedom”.

From the article:

“This is not dumb, bad planning,this is very well-thought-out, bad planning.””

~~~
InitialLastName
As has been pointed out many times in recent weeks, they then want the "big
government" to fund their rescue and recovery when that mistake bites them.

~~~
Simon_says
Exactly. I have no problem with idiots that want to build in flood plains, but
I get upset with federally-subsidized flood insurance program and FEMA who
come in to rescue people who make shit decisions.

~~~
leereeves
Is this partisan? Do you feel the same way about people who live in areas
prone to destruction by hurricanes, like New Orleans and Puerto Rico?

~~~
Simon_says
Absolutely not partisan. I would prefer if my (federal) tax dollars didn't
help anyone affected by hurricanes. I understand my point of view is way
outside of the mainstream, where all of the politicians compete to see who can
appear more concerned.

~~~
mulmen
I'm curious to understand this perspective. If this were true what do you
think the consequences would be?

~~~
Simon_says
Primarily, I think it would bring incentives closer to the people making
decisions. I think it would have pretty dramatic effects on where people
choose to live, how they construct their houses, and their level of disaster
preparedness. And these are all very good things. Secondarily, it would ever
so slightly reduce the federal budget. I don't have any illusion that it would
be a meaningful impact on the budget, but I have very similar attitudes
towards a wide swath of other federal programs.

------
conductr
I grew up in this area. I can confirm it’s not common knowledge how these dams
work. I learned a lot seeing Harvey.

Everyone does know the dams are there. But in an otherwise flat city they are
just big mounds of dirt running for miles. They don’t hold water most of the
time. Even with heavy rain any minor flooding goes away in a couple days. I
never really understood why a 20-50 foot tall dam was needed. I remember once
joking with a friend that if the water ever filled up over the dam that means
the entire state of Texas behind the dams is under water. It actually did not
make sense to me why they built the dams so big until Harvey.

In any case, someone knew and should have been a required disclosure when
buying a home. However, I don’t think it would have helped. People would have
bought there anyway because this kind of flooding was unthinkable. Although
they would have known they needed flood insurance. But then, insurance
companies probably wouldn’t offer it.

~~~
nerdponx
It's incredible that the city, or for that matter the Army Corps of Engineers,
allowed anyone to build homes there. "Totally irresponsible and reckless"
would be my most favorable assessment.

~~~
brenschluss
The Army Corps couldn't help:

>Long added that the Army Corps doesn’t have the power to control development
on land the agency doesn’t own.

>“That would require the act of politicians, and they’ve chosen not to do it,”
Long said.

~~~
toomuchtodo
The Army Corps should buy up as much of the land possible around the resouivor
while the prices are depressed to prevent future development on it.

EDIT: My comment assumes that they would acquire additional funding to do
this, as they are the best agency to acquire and hold the land to prevent
future development (vs a traditional land trust for conservancy).

~~~
zaroth
TFA says they bought 24,000 acres for about $170 / acre (today's dollars) in
the 40s. The surrounding 8,000 acres in fact is perfectly buildable with the
right codes in place.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> The surrounding 8,000 acres in fact is perfectly buildable with the right
> codes in place.

What is the delta in cost for building with updated/"right" building codes
versus how buildings on that flood plain are already being built?

Everything has a cost, right? Its whether we pay for it blindly through
national flood insurance or uprated building codes.

~~~
zaroth
"Stilting" houses is not a big deal, if flooding is to be expected. It's done
all the time on the coast, and apparently should have been done here. The
storm was once-in-a-lifetime, but there's no telling when the next one will
hit.

"Communities that participate in the NFIP are required to adopt and enforce
local regulations for development in mapped Special Flood Hazard Areas (SFHAs)
to reduce the risk of flooding (see 44 CFR Parts 59 and 60)." If the zoning
doesn't meet the minimum requirements, then NFIP is not available, which is a
deal-breaker.

If the minimum requirements are not sufficient, they can be updated. If the
area wasn't properly designated a SFHA, that should be fixed and all new
construction and substantial renovation must conform.

This shit probably is not complicated, we just aren't versed in the field. I
guessing that TFA fails in researching and educating the reader on the
extensive regulations currently present.

[1] - [https://www.fema.gov/media-library-
data/643d07bceee8ade17eef...](https://www.fema.gov/media-library-
data/643d07bceee8ade17eef8e11cf7a2abb/P-936_sec2_508.pdf)

------
tzs
Texas is a non-recourse state [1].

In a non-recourse state if you default on your mortgage the lender cannot come
after you personally for the remaining balance. All they can do is foreclose
and then sell the house. If what they get from the sale is less than what you
owed, the lender eats the difference.

I would have expected the mortgage companies to have been on top of this,
either not lending for homes in that area or requiring the borrowers to have
flood insurance.

[1] along with Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Idaho, Minnesota,
North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Utah, and Washington.

~~~
alasdair_
>In a non-recourse state if you default on your mortgage the lender cannot
come after you personally for the remaining balance.

Sort of. There are lots of caveats (taking out a second mortgage removes some
of this protection, for example).

Also, in Washington, at least, this is only true if the lender opts to handle
it this way. They get a simplified process if it's non-recourse but if they
know you have lots of other assets, then absolutely CAN take you to court for
the difference, it's just far more costly and they can't use the simplified
procedure.

------
timthelion
There used to be big green feilds where people would fly their kites along the
river in the Karlín neighborhood of Prague. The feilds were privately owned,
but it was illegal to build on them, because they were seasonal flood grounds.
Now, new and very fancy offices and appartments are being built there, despite
the fact that we often have over a meter of floodwater there. I have no idea
what changed. In the same neighborhood is an old rotting building called the
Invalidovna [1], which was partly destroyed by flooding. It is about 200
meters from the shore of the river. Everything closer will be flooded even
worse. This is an issue that is of great interest to me in the analysis of
property rights. When the old building code was in effect, privately owned
land was turned into a defacto public park. No one wanted the city to lose
that park, but the private property was owned. Doesn't the owner have the
right to do with their land as they please? But really, it is in the interest
of no one except the owner that the owner should build there. Even the people
who buy the appartments are getting screwed in a way.

And what is the fairness of declaring the land a flood plane in the first
place. People owned that land before it was declared a flood plane. The
government, with the stroke of a pen makes land worthless or worth millions.
It is just one of those great examples of how capitalism is chaotic, unjust,
and senseless and why we should never assume that someone deserves to be rich
and others deserve to be poor.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invalidovna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invalidovna)

~~~
rsync
"No one wanted the city to lose that park, but the private property was owned.
Doesn't the owner have the right to do with their land as they please? But
really, it is in the interest of no one except the owner that the owner should
build there. Even the people who buy the appartments are getting screwed in a
way."

I think this is easily solved by requiring the owner to post a bond that
approximates the future risk exposure that public entities (like FEMA, the
National Guard, state police, etc.) face due to the new buildings now in
place.

That and, of course, full disclosure in sales literature/contracts.

In this way the private property owner exercises their right to dispose of
their property as they see fit but the general public is not shouldering a
public cost.

------
olivermarks
There is great pressure to build on designated flood plains all over the
western world as population density increases. Rules are changed to enable
building after there are a couple of decades of people 'forgetting' the
geographic realities.

You could make a case that the terrible northern california wildfires in
Sonoma county are a variation on this theme. Virtually identical huge fires
happened in 1964, when there was far less building and population.
[http://www.sfchronicle.com/thetake/article/Wine-Country-
fire...](http://www.sfchronicle.com/thetake/article/Wine-Country-fire-
of-1964-Eerie-similarities-to-12267643.php)

People forget, subdivisions are built, and people assume someone somewhere did
their due dilligence and that it is 'safe' land...

~~~
olivermarks
[http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/7534368-181/santa-rosas-
de...](http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/7534368-181/santa-rosas-devastated-
coffey-park?gallery=7515439&artslide=8)

"Surprising as it was to residents, the destruction of Coffey Park wasn’t a
mystery to fire scientists. They view it as a rare, but predictable, event
that has exposed flaws in the way fire risk is measured and mitigated in
California. Because it was outside the officially mapped “very severe” hazard
zone, more than five miles to the east, Coffey Park was exempt from
regulations designed to make buildings fire resistant in high-risk areas.

California fire officials developed hazard maps in the 2000s that for the
first time, tied building codes to geographies based on risk. Max Moritz, a
fire specialist with the University of California’s Cooperative Extension,
said the maps were an important step forward in assessing fire danger.

But the Coffey Park catastrophe has shown that the methodology, and the law
underlying it, were too narrow."

------
cmiles74
“I don’t want to stay in this community,” he said. “I have to go far away from
these reservoirs.”

The value of the property will drop and people will move right back in.
Reading the article it sounds like the city and county still aren't willing to
take any real action to move housing out of the flood reservoir.

I wonder what will make City officials take a wider view. As long as short
term gain is the largest deciding factor, we can expect more such tragedies.

~~~
mannykannot
So long as the federal government is effectively underwriting a chunk of the
risk, the situation is likely to continue.

~~~
scarface74
The same people who fight the hardest against “government subsidized health
insurance for the poor”, beg for “government subsidized flood insurance for
homes that cost $500,000+”.

------
stevetodd
If you want to look at flood information for most places in the US, go here:

[https://msc.fema.gov/portal/search](https://msc.fema.gov/portal/search)

~~~
dawnerd
Last two homes I’ve purchased have had this info as part of the
escrow/mortgage docs. I bet most people don’t bother to actually read that
hide stack of paper they’re signing.

~~~
toast0
Most of the stack (when I closed) was a mortgage contract which was marked up
as a uniform contract, plus what must have been one page per year of the
finances for each payment. I double checked some key terms, but mostly relied
on it being a uniform contract.

Everything else was short and readable, but there were a lot of them.

------
rayiner
This is a really stark example of the chasm between politics and engineering,
and why the latter often finds the former incomprehensible and distasteful.
The engineers did their jobs. The politicians and the public didn’t understand
it, or didn’t care, and disaster ensued.

------
dmitriid
> Some local government officials, like Harris County Commissioner Steve
> Radack, say they’ve warned residents for years about the risks of living in
> or around the reservoirs during town halls and other public events.

Wait. Isn't the job of government officials to _not issue building permits in
the first place_?

> Several local officials — including Houston’s “flood czar” and a neighboring
> county executive — said they had no idea the neighborhoods had been built
> inside the flood pools. Several real estate agents said they didn’t realize
> they were selling homes inside the pools.

Yeah, right.

------
mmagin
Isn't Houston famous for having basically no zoning laws, at least compared to
most developed parts of the US?

~~~
adolph
It lacks what most people consider zoning, although the various jurisdictions
making up Houston all have various land use regulations and most neighborhoods
have deed restrictions.

------
avyfain
There is a great Planet Money episode[0] on the problems behind government
insurance/subsidy of flood neighborhoods in Houston. Worth listening to.

[0]
[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/09/29/554603161/episo...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/09/29/554603161/episode-797-flood-
money)

------
monort
Is there a service to show the map of insurance premiums for different
disaster types?

~~~
sverige
Historical loss data is definitely collected by insurance companies for
analysis by their underwriters.

Sometimes they share that information with each other. For example, some
limited loss data is shared among companies for auto claim information
associated with auto policy holders. (Not all companies participate. GEICO is
the biggest holdout, last I knew.) I have not heard that companies share
property damage loss information with each other, but they may do so the same
way they share auto claim information.

On the other hand, not sharing may give them a competitive advantage. For
example, Allstate systematically reduced their coverage of coastal homes in
the New Jersey / New York markets about 10 years ago, because their threat
models indicated that the area was due for a major hurricane. This obviously
reduced their losses when Hurricane Sandy hit.

Katrina got all of the big insurers to take a closer look at their exposures
from hurricanes, and I would not be surprised to learn that premiums for
coastal properties all along the East Coast and Gulf Coast have skyrocketed in
the last decade. The risk is very high. They enjoyed over 10 years of low
losses, but then this year they got hammered in Texas and Florida.

So, would companies share detailed information with each other? Probably not,
but they probably have a good idea of what their competitors have paid out for
major events, and they definitely know where the risks are geographically.

Are they going to share that detailed information with the public? Hell no.
They bought it, they paid for it, it's theirs, and they're going to keep it.

The easiest way to determine if there's a high risk is to ask for a quote on a
property _before_ you buy it. That will tell you a lot. For example, if you're
thinking of buying some property in southern California and wonder if the fire
risk is high, just ask for a quote. If wildfire risk is high, Allstate (for
example) will simply tell you they can't write a policy for that property.
Other companies may write a policy, but the premium will be higher than
surrounding areas with lower risk.

Flood insurance is a special case. No homeowners policy offers coverage for
flooding, because it is the textbook example for adverse selection in property
and casualty insurance. (That is, only people who live in a flood plain will
buy flood insurance, so the risk is not spread across a large enough
population. Fire, on the other hand, can happen anywhere, so everyone buys
coverage.)

For this reason, the government offers flood insurance for those who live in
flood plains. Interestingly enough, even then not many people buy the
coverage.

Edit: Earthquakes are another example of adverse selection. If you live in
California and have investigated premiums for earthquake coverage, you already
know this. No, it is not covered by your homeowners policy. No, I don't want
to pay for it when it happens, because I live in an area with extremely low
risk for earthquakes (and flooding). And yet, when it happens, I will surely
be paying more taxes to cover someone else's losses.

~~~
monort
Surely this data can be crowdsourced from end-users? Just like wages are not
public, but we still have a glassdoor.

~~~
toomuchtodo
If you could data mine from public record sources, possibly. But there's no
way to crowdsource this data due to lack of incentives.

------
iaw
> He said he still considers it a “unique event” and doesn’t think it’s likely
> those homes will flood again any time soon.

Of all the things that came across in this article as disastrous this really
caught me. This event wasn't "unique," something similar happened nearly 30
years ago.

The question that needs to be asked is: when will this happen again?

------
yellow_postit
Would any type of records search available to a homeowner prepurchase have
turned up these floodplain maps?

~~~
TallGuyShort
I agree they _should_ be available, but it may not have made a difference.
Most people don't read any records when purchasing a home or base such a
decision on things like this.

I've had flood plain maps included in my mortgage paperwork, but I've also had
the other parties sit their being verbally impatient while I actually look
through everything instead of just signing where they show me.

~~~
deelowe
You should have reviewed the map during due diligence, not at closing. Closing
is for checking that the terms of the deal are properly documented not for
research.

~~~
TallGuyShort
Well I can tell you the map was not available prior to closing. I requested it
and all documents. Town and County governments only referred me to the
Metropolitan District, whose board cancelled meetings and ignored all
attempts. Closing was the first time I saw anything. That's why I didn't feel
bad making them wait.

~~~
deelowe
It's not the seller's fault the county is a pain in the ass. Again closing is
not for due diligence. Even if you had found an issue, you would have lost
your escrow. I would be pissed too if a buyer tried to find a reason to back
out of a deal at closing. That's not what that's for and you could have cost
them a ton of money if you had found an issue.

[Edit] fyi the proper way to make the seller care about such things is to
extend due diligence and let them know you'll need a flood map before you'll
move forward on the deal.

~~~
amigoingtodie
Parent is well within his rights.

I would be pissed if I bought property that knowingly floods, but the seller's
agent insists it is the responsibility of the buyer's agent to discover this.

What if the buyer relied on the seller's agent?

You believe the buyer is at fault?

~~~
deelowe
I don't "think" it's the buyer's responsibility. It literally is their
responsibility (excluding special circumstances). The large majority of
contracts are written with the assumption that the buyer performs due
diligence during a specific period. Once that period is up, there are
penalties for backing out. The buyer is in violation of the contract if they
back out of the offer. Rights have little to do with contract law in this case
by the way.

Note we're talking about public records such as flood plains here, not the
seller lying on a disclosure form or some other form of fraud.

~~~
amigoingtodie
If the penalties are part of the contract, then the buyer has a right, as does
the seller, to execute the contract in that manner, as well.

You act as though the buyer is committing a crime, where it is questionable
that the seller or their agent may have.

~~~
deelowe
My point is that any experienced seller (and the lawyers and agents and
banks...) is going to be confused and likely pissed if you show up to closing
expecting to do all your research then. That's not what closing is for. Due
diligence exists for a reason.

~~~
TallGuyShort
>> is going to be confused and likely pissed if you show up to closing
expecting to do all your research then.

To be clear, the seller in this case also happened to be the developer in
charge of the quasi-government entity responsible for these documents. The
county referred me to them because State law gives them responsibility for
those documents. They had violated time frames in the contract multiple times
before this, I only proceeded because I wanted the house at that location and
wasn't willing to walk away despite their violations.

I gave the title insurance company and the seller written notice of several
weeks that I was still waiting on documents, and that if I didn't have them
until we closed, I was going to make them sit there while I looked it all
over. So I really don't care if they were confused or pissed, and I really
don't care if you think so, either. I asked for them early in the process,
didn't get them, so I was going to look them over and make a final decision
when I got them - which was at closing, because they chose it to be at
closing. I had money already on the table, and it was a calculated risk that I
would eventually be okay with the documents, but I wasn't prepared to proceed
with the rest of the mortgage without them.

My point is that it was obvious to me that in most of the mortgages they
handled and in most of the contracts this developer / builder (one of the
biggest in my area) handles, most people were not looking at these things
EVER.

------
moomin
An aside: I'm getting tired of hearing people talk about "unique events".
We've had a lot of them recently. Maybe in future the weather is going to
follow a different path from that which prevailed in the last century.

------
Dowwie
Lenders would know about the flood zone and act accordingly.

Something is wrong with this story..

------
gumby
I love that the responsible state and county officials blame congress,and that
the article lets them get away with it. They should blame Californians and
jihadis while they are at it.

How’s that elimination of “job-killing regulation” working for ya? Things like
this are the point of local government.

~~~
zanny
The Houston situation is as much the fault of regulation as its the fault of
not having some.

Houston itself was only built up to the degree it was on the backs of
federally subsidized flood insurance and huge amounts of public money spent to
build the dams around it. If developers had to eat the real cost of building
in a flood zone, many fewer would have done so.

