Is USA really causing major deaths in hurricanes?

[quamp1]

link here

Coastal Development and Federal Flood Insurance
NOW's producers recently traveled to Dauphin Island, Alabama, where 60% of the homes on the western edge of the island have been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. But this isn't the first time the island has been hit hard. In the wake of previous flooding, communities like Dauphin Island have used federal dollars and federal insurance programs to rebuild. NOW asks if we have been making a mistake with government policies that encourage rebuilding in areas vulnerable to natural disasters.

The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is one of the focal points of a growing debate over coastal development, and coastal disaster. Faced with increasing costs of taxpayer funded disaster relief for flood victims, Congress instituted the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) in 1968. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) manages the NFIP.
Central to the program is the mapping of areas prone to flooding. Flooding threat classifications run from minimal to severe — areas designated "Special Flood Hazard Areas" (SFHA's). The SFHA can also be defined as the "100-year floodplain." According to FEMA, this "is not the flood that will occur once every 100 years. Rather, it is the flood elevation that has a 1 percent chance of being equaled or exceeded each year...A structure located within a special flood hazard area shown on an NFIP map has a 26 percent chance of suffering flood damage during the term of a 30 year mortgage."

Buyers or builders in SFHAs are required to purchase flood insurance. By adopting and enforcing floodplain management plans, communities can benefit under the NFIP which makes the federally backed flood insurance available to homeowners, renters, and business.

In the wake of Katrina, and now Rita, which threatens areas previously destroyed by hurricanes like Galveston, Texas, some are questioning the NFIP program's structure and function. Critics wonder if the federal government should be underwriting development and rebuilding on flood-endangered areas.

I don't know if you do this kind of thing in the UK, but it does seem a bit silly here.

 

[ViolentPanda]

We've got somewhat of a problem with developers building housing on unsuitable land such as flood plains and water meadows (pretty much the natural sponges used by nature to absorb the impact of flooding). This means that not only do these swathes of houses get flooded, but because the ground that used to absorb mch of the water is now built on, the flood water travels further and locations outside the flood plain experience flooding too.
Our govt has had to (very foolishly imo) step in as an insurer of last resort because commercial insurers won't touch these places, pretty much putting themselves in the same situation as the federal fund you mention.

Seems to me it'd be a lot easier if developers and homeowners paid for a decent cost/benefit analysis before building on marginal or weather-prone land.