Growth concerns rise in flood areas

SKYWATCH JOURNAL

Photo Left: People walk through the heavily damaged Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans as construction crews repair the levee.

Hurricane Katrina-style devastation could be seen in other parts of the nation as development pressure puts more housing in flood plains.

Photo Left: Night falls on a new development surrounded by levees that hold back the waters of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River delta in California. The dikes are in worse shape than those in Louisiana.

Feb 20, 2006
ST. LOUIS--Concentrated development in flood-prone parts of Missouri, California and other states has significantly raised the risk of New Orleans-style flooding as people snap up new homes even in areas recently deluged, researchers said yesterday.
Around St. Louis, where the Mississippi River lapped at the steps of the Gateway Arch during the 1993 flood, more than 14,000 acres of flood plain have been developed since then. That has reduced the region's ability to store water during future floods and potentially put more people in harm's way, said Adolphus Busch IV, a scion of the Anheuser-Busch brewing family who is chairman of the Great Rivers Habitat Alliance.
Similar development has occurred around Dallas, Kansas City, Mo., Los Angeles, Omaha, Neb., and Sacramento, Calif., said Gerald Galloway, a professor of engineering at the University of Maryland.
"The half-life of the memory of a flood is very short. You can already hear it in Washington, D.C.: 'New Orleans where?'" Galloway said of the lack of action in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina last summer.