Not 2009, but 1997 the last “100 year” flood
The Red River’s first recorded flood (affecting people) was in 1770. Severe floods occurred in the Red River basin through out the 1800 and 1900’s with the worst occurring in 1979. The last bad one was 1997. And now this year the regions has another bad one.
Given this is very predictable, why do people live where the water wants to go? And if they insist on living there, why should I pay for their losses when the predictable flood happens? And why should I spend billions building dikes and damns that will give the illusion of safety until it happens again?
I feel bad for these people. But I’m also starting to feel mad.
To me, this is part in parcel with the financial woes we face now. If they make money selling their flood plain house, they keep it. When it gets flooded, a federal disaster is declared, and I pay.
Public risk, private profit. No thanks.
March 27th, 2009 at 10:08 am
My question is why would anyone live anywhere in North Dakota. Flat, barren, miserable weather, nothing there, nothing to recommend it. Seems like a good place to be from. 80 degrees here today, but I cant feel bad for people who choose to live in an environment like that. I’d rather not pay for it, either.
March 27th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Given the unstable desert, the lack of water, the carcinogenic sunshine, the air pollution, the financial condition of the state, and the crowding with the Mexican re-conquest, why do so many people live in SoCal? Just because. Some are trapped by economic circumstance, some have family roots and care about family cohesiveness, some do not have mobile skills. etc. Many of them make the most of their circumstances by convincing themselves that they live in a demi-paradise.
On one of my visits to ND, I talked to a state official who said there were a lot of Californians returning home to ND. I notice that one of your close family members hauled ass out of California after only a few years in the Golden State. He now lives in a dry empty state, having tried a big city and remote New England.
Next time you eat pasta from North Dakota hard Durum wheat or a potato, think of the Red River valley.
The reason that 100-year floods happen so often is a denial of the downside of economic development with no care for the environment. And a mistaken belief that levees and flood control measures will actually control floods despite the removal of the natural places for the water to disperse and be absorbed. If SoCal were to get a lot of rain, the same floods would happen.
March 27th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
I would probably find ND fine to live in, except for the cold. I know I’d like the people.
March 27th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
The silt of extinct Lake Agassiz is as rich as soil gets, just like in eastern Washington and Idaho where it’s 200 feet deep in spots. Great for wheat and potatoes. The soil up by the border near Pembina is absolutely black but not from lava sands. Fargo floods but the western fields use irrigation from the Columbia Basin including mile high Jackson Lake and Grand Coulee Dam. The amount of flooding depends on when the ice melts on the prairie, if it goes early or late with respect to the spring snow melt there’s no problem. Looks like global cooling kept the ice in this year as the snow starts to melt. Yesterday’s blizzard may help a little.
March 28th, 2009 at 10:16 am
Like I said 80 degrees today, a light breeze, and no flooding on the horizon. SoCal is a mess, but at least the weather is decent.