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| Maesland (ND) Flood Control Gate |
The devastation wrought by Hurricane Sandy on the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast really got people thinking about what went wrong and what, if anything, can be done to prevent similar outcomes in the future. As you probably saw in my recent posts, residents of the Huntingdon neighborhood along Cameron Run were expecting the worst as Sandy approached their flood-prone neighborhood. Luckily for them (but not for folks further North in Philadelphia, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut) the storm did not result in much damage or rain in the Washington region. Nevertheless, the storm has really got people thinking about the broader implications of global warming, lack of proper land use and regional watershed planning, and increasing population in coastal areas. One in a series of interesting New York Times articles recently posits that it may be time to consider measures such as those in the Netherlands for flood control. In
Lessons from a Flood-Prone Land, it is noted that the Dutch approach focuses on flood prevention and control as a basis of National policy--not surprising since most of the Netherlands lies beneath sea level and lack of planning in the past resulted in great loss of life and devastation to the country's economy. The article also notes that in contrast, the U.S. approach focuses on disaster response in responding to natural disasters. The main point is that the Netherlands view the high cost of their flood prevention and control efforts (the Delta Works projects cost $13 billion dollars and took four decades to complete) as necessary and a better investment than the cost of simply responding to disasters of this nature after they take place. Considering that the cost so far to New York State alone from Hurricane Sandy-related damage has topped $42 billion dollars, it may be time to start looking at the Dutch approach as an economical, and necessary, method of preventing the devastation that is sure to visit our shores again and again in the near future.
