Labels matter, even—perhaps especially—in times of emergency. Calling the midwestern carnage a natural disaster neatly absolves us of responsibility, and casts us as hapless victims of an unpredictable and vengeful Mother Nature. Far better to draw a distinction between natural hazards and human-induced disasters. According to Craig Fugate, a former administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, “Floods and hurricanes happen. The hazard itself is not the disaster—it’s our habits, our building codes. It’s how we build and live in those areas—that’s the disaster.” This is not a call for blame, but a call to arms to learn from the past to keep ourselves out of harm’s way.
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First, on Monday FEMA is expected to release “Risk Rating 2.0,” which will assess the actual flood risk of individual properties, incorporating previously ignored flood triggers such as heavy precipitation. Previous maps and analyses tied flood risk to the “100-year floodplain”—areas believed to have a 1 percent chance of flooding each year. In many cases, severe flooding occurred outside mapped floodplains, taking people by surprise and without sufficient insurance.
Second, flood-insurance rates are beginning to reflect the true cost of insuring flood-prone properties. As Fugate has argued, “As long as we price risk too cheap, there’s no incentive to change behavior. Disasters will get bigger.” FEMA’s new “Risk Rating 2.0” lays the groundwork for linking insurance premiums more closely to risk, while also charging more equitable rates for low-value properties.
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