"Failing to minimize and manage the risk is a dereliction of duty to everyone who is vulnerable," writes William S. Becker in his article for the Huffington Post. This is the second in a series of posts on extreme weather events in the United States. It details the "perfect storm" of increasing weather extremes combined with decreasing government ability to respond.
He points at false security, "we have spent billions of dollars on dams, levees and other structures to protect lives and property from floods, the most common natural disaster in the United States. These structures have saved lives, but they've also produced a deadly false sense of security;" aging infrastructure, "The federal government may have helped build [dams], but maintenance usually is the responsibility of the farms, drainage districts and communities they were built to protect;" deadly demographics, "While floods are the most common weather disaster, heat is our No. 1 weather-related killer;" and degraded ecosystems, "Wetlands have been destroyed to make way for farmland and urban development. Altering ecosystems for commerce also has turned out to be risky business."