From Flood Control to Flood Insurance: Changing Approaches to Floods in the United States‪.‬

Abstract Flood losses in the United States, before the 1930s, were primarily a state, local, and private concern, in which the federal government had little interest. Between 1917 and 1938, Congress greatly expanded the federal role in constructing flood control projects of many types throughout the major river systems of the nation. During the 1950s and 1960s, a "harvest of research" under the leadership of Gilbert F. White, then at the University of Chicago, cast doubt on the effectiveness of structural flood control projects to reduce flood losses. Since the 1960s, construction of new structural flood control projects in the United States has dwindled in the face of economic and environmental opposition. Meanwhile, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) has become the primary vehicle of federal flood policy. The NFIP is intended to be self-funding out of premium revenues. Yet, Congress did not want premiums to be so high that property owners, especially those of lower income, would be unwilling or unable to purchase insurance. NFIP coverage has grown to about 4 million policies and over $400 billion in total coverage. This however only represents about 20-25% of floodprone private property in the United States. The NFIP has undertaken a massive program of mapping flood hazard areas for most of the nation's communities at a cost exceeding one billion dollars. The NFIP seeks to promote safer rebuilding both before and after floods. One of the most serious weaknesses of the National Flood Insurance Program is the problem of repetitive losses. The program has been notoriously willing to continue insuring structures despite repetitive claims, often with little increase in premium. The challenge facing the United States today is to learn how to revise flood insurance and disaster assistance policies to ease the pain of disasters while not encouraging unwise rebuilding and chronic repetitive losses.