A big, watery egg on their faces

Well this doesn't sound good:

LAKE DELTON, Wis. -- Property owners who had their homes swept away or destroyed as Lake Delton flooded its banks won't be covered by national flood insurance because the Village of Lake Delton had suspended its participation in the National Flood Insurance Program.

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The director of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources' Bureau of Water Management said that the village had been a participating member in the NFIP since 1975, but failed to formally adopt a new floodplain the Federal Emergency Management Agency mapped in 2001. So the village had its eligibility canceled.

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The program is voluntary and any community can participate and sign up at any time. If a new map comes out, local officials have to formally adopt that new map within six months. However, Lake Delton officials didn't, WISC-TV reported.

When WISC-TV asked the village president why the village wasn't signed up for the FEMA flood insurance program, he flatly said he "won't answer that question."

Village Board president Frank Kaminski refused to answer any questions, and said WISC-TV should talk to the police chief.

Police Chief Thomas Dorner and the city engineer said the village had a problem with the FEMA's expansion of Lake Delton's flood zone, which can make building much more costly.

So far, village officials have pointed to a lack of flooding problems in the past as reasons for why the village wasn't signed up for the FEMA flood insurance program.

I mentioned before my suspicions about poor planning and how we need to be more cautious about where and how we build our homes and businesses. This makes it obvious, too, that village officials (at least) knew about the floodplain and decided, possibly because they thought it would scare developers away because of costs, to forgo the flood insurance plan.

Now those property owners effected by the flooding are left without insurance, kicking themselves for listening to officials who told them "'[Flooding] would never happen. It's never happened and we have control on both ends of the lake with dams and you're fine."

Again, I recognize that it's impossible to know if and when disasters like this one are going to happen. But when your community lies in a documented floodplain, and despite the dams, it would be wise to plan for the worst and hope for the best, rather than just hoping and planning for the best.


Please consider helping flood victims out in any way you can. See the American Red Cross in Wisconsin's website for contact info.

The Great Flood

The news from Wisconsin is more than a little grim. After record, torrential rainfall over the weekend, a state of emergency has been declared for a whopping 30 counties. Gov. Doyle is expected to ask for a federal declaration of disaster sometime soon, as FEMA begins its survey of the effected areas.

While several communities have been flooded, the most dramatic tale comes from Lake Delton, which until yesterday was a resort spot in the Wisconsin Dells where the Tommy Bartlet water and ski shows made their home. Amazingly, shockingly, the lake is almost entirely gone now, having burst over its banks and drained, quite spectacularly, into the Wisconsin River.

Caffeinated Politics has some good pictures of the devastation in Lake Delton, plus a bit of interesting commentary.

Mother Nature does, indeed, bat last. In the rebuilding process already promised by Doyle and the communities hard-hit by this disaster, we need to make sure to strike a balance between revitalization and forethought. That is, money shouldn't be our guiding principal when it comes to development. Clearly, many of the homes and businesses lost or damaged by the high water were built on flood plains or near possibly poorly constructed dams and levies. Many of the people who lived there, however, were told by their insurance companies that they wouldn't need flood insurance because of the presence of the dams. They've been proven tragically wrong.

Sometimes, you can't know that something like this will happen. Sometimes it is nothing more than a freak occurrance. Too often, however, the surveys have already been done to illustrate the danger that people would face by building in certain areas. They're ignored, though, either by zealous developers or careless citizens.

The obvious, extreme example would be what happened in New Orleans when Katrina hit. Shoddily constructed levies, the result of corner-cutting in the name of higher profits, lead to death and destruction on a sickening scale.

We're not holding back the ocean up here in Wisconsin, but the same principal applies. First, that we need to make sure we hold construction projects to the highest standards of safety and planning. Second, that Mother Nature comes first, because she doesn't care how good your plans are--when it comes down to it, she always wins. A little humility, a little deference, goes a long way.

So we'll rebuild, as we always do and always should do, but I hope we do so with a lot more reason and responsibility. Just because a place is beautiful, doesn't mean we're entitled to building luxury homes or resorts there. Sometimes, a beautiful place should be left alone to be beautiful.

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The Red Cross is coordinating efforts to donate supplies to those left in need by the flooding. It'll also be worth keeping an eye out for donation drives to support farmers who will invariably be effected by all of this, too.

(photo from the AP)