Exactly when in 1993 was the first flood on the Mississippi? I thought it was in the spring, but didn’t that guy from Arkansas get sworn in on January 20, 1993??????????
I notice the article conveniently did not include definitions of 100 year flood and 500 year flood (or floodplain). Why not? Look up the definitions and read them (try google). The definitions are perfectly clear mathematical probabilities of flood occurrence and there is no “confusion”. If you do not understand the definitions, have someone with some intelligence explain the definitions to you and quit the ignorant whining.
in our society we do it all the time and still don’t understand what they mean. for example:
we always talk about the right and left side of the fence for politics. conservative and liberal.
in advertising how many times do you see this is the biggest sale ever – 30-60% off, and yet, later on the year, they advertise the same thing claiming to be better than before.
The government isn’t the only one to use “bad” terminology. What about the use of “replacement cost” and “co-insurance” and many other misleading and overly used terms in the insurance industry? Just because we’ve always done it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be improved.
These guys talk about these terms and they are talking about mathematical probabilities. The average layman interprets these “predictions”. They don’t understand the math.
The big difference here though is people’s lives and livlihoods are at stake with the misrepresentative labels. I personally am beginning to feel old as in my lifetime, I have survived 2 ‘500-year’ flood events. I seriously question whether we have solid statistics here in the state of Iowa that date back to the year 1508 regarding flooding.
People gamble with their decisons to purchase insurance. Whatever you call the flood probablity is moot. If you live near a major freaking river, lake, reservoir, levee, or ocean there is ALWAYS a chance the damn thing will flood. Rolling the dice on whether to protect themselves is their problem. Notice they don’t play the same game with LIFE insurance, even thought that only occurs once.
a flood plain means you should be taking your chances on the likelyhood of flooding. why did our tax dollars fund the corps of engineers constructing all of those levees if there wasn’t a good chance of flood?
quit fighting Mother Nature and learn to cope with it, and build in the appropriate places.
so this sounds like a familiar saying…so you probably will say that whomever is in office, it’s their fault..um…when did the presidency have a pact w/mother nature? and do you blame all previous incidences to the whitehouse? (i wonder, is this ROSIE?)
The presidency may not have a pact with mother nature but is it possible they started an unjustified war, spending and wasting billions of dollars, large amounts to companies like Haliburton, then give Congress budget proposals with -0- money to rebuild levees and bridges and other infrastructure ? so that when Nature did strike, the old structures weren’t able to handle it ? I haven’t researched this, maybe this isn’t the case, just asking the question. I know there is a levee project in my area that the Feds had ageed to pay to complete but funds have dried up so now city/state govt is looking to issue bonds to get it done.
There are plenty of places to build and live in the USA that you don’t need to put yourself, your family, and your property at risk by settling remotely near a water source that COULD flood.
Ed, you have an intelligent yet simple point. It is hard to swallow when people who choose to live in places that are susceptible to flood complain when the inevitable happens. For the blame-Bush whiners, get a life… I don’t read history books that blame all rations and etc. on WWII. Rather there was a spirit of USA vs. the enemy. Now I feel like we are sleeping with the enemy. too bad people won’t choose to rally around our country and face the real foes together with bravery and support for our country and its leaders. I am wondering if the US can still rightfully be labeled ‘home of the brave’… Now, back to the flooding, Cedar Rapids, IA and Iowa City, etc. were hit with a terrible and historic flood event which expanded well beyond any imaginable flood plain. I can understand why many of those people not only chose to live there, but did not have any type of flood insurance. I am told that every ins. policy excludes flood coverage.
Hey, does anyone know how United Fire in Cedar Rapids is really doing? They took over 10 feet of water in their office, website was down for a few days, now they say they have a temporary office set up in Norway, IA.
Are they getting things done? Am surprised that they were shut down for so long, glad I did not accept job from them earlier this year or I’d have been out of work for a while.
good points, Rosie. I was reading the other day that the 1993 flood was a direct result of Bush, as was the Northridge EQ, the San Francisco EQ, the oil embargo of 1973, as well as the ‘jump the shark’ episode of Happy Days.
I do worry about this country when people are so blinded by their hatreds they cannot see the light of day; scary thing is most of them vote, and worse yet, they may breed! Some can’t breed, but in some states they can marry! At least it keeps the aluminum foil folks in business; all them hats have to be reshaped and remade daily…takes allot of foil to keep Bush and Cheney from readin’ their thoughts…
Liberal Arts versus Engineering/Science Degrees/Farmers
During the 60’s a lot of educators were convinced engineering students were shallow because we did not have enough liberal arts exposure. Thus we were forced to take liberal arts courses.
Which is a good idea, I have now been exposed to liberal arts. I only wish liberal arts students would have been forced to take one or two courses of engineering, science, or agriculture. Maybe then terms such as “100-year” would be as understandable as The Planets op. 32 by Gustav Holst is to me.
I include farmers as part of engineering and science because they understand which end of horse to approach, how rain works, and crop insurance.
Fred,
Thank you for recognizing that to be a Farmer you need an education including basic engineering. Other topics now stressed are advanced mathmatics, economics, professional gambling, insurance,enviromental sciences, computer science, polictical science, sociology, and of course agriculture courses. You also need to have a love for the land and be truly concerned with protecting it.
UNited Fire is up and functioning, business as usual. They are operating from a temporary location as their building is being readied for normal occupancy, their website is up and doing business as usual, but with a few hiccups due to bandwidth limitations at the temporary location.I heard that some employees are already back in the home office hq building.
Yes, since NFIP was formed back in the mid-1960s, every homeowners policy has excluded flood (surface water). In most policies it is not difficult to see that it is excluded.
The one thing that seems to go unnoticed is zoning laws that allow us to continue to build in flood plains. If you are building behind a levee that is holding back any river, why would you be surprised when the levees don’t hold? Why wouldn’t you have flood insurance, whether or not your mortgage company requires it?
Exactly when in 1993 was the first flood on the Mississippi? I thought it was in the spring, but didn’t that guy from Arkansas get sworn in on January 20, 1993??????????
I notice the article conveniently did not include definitions of 100 year flood and 500 year flood (or floodplain). Why not? Look up the definitions and read them (try google). The definitions are perfectly clear mathematical probabilities of flood occurrence and there is no “confusion”. If you do not understand the definitions, have someone with some intelligence explain the definitions to you and quit the ignorant whining.
in our society we do it all the time and still don’t understand what they mean. for example:
we always talk about the right and left side of the fence for politics. conservative and liberal.
in advertising how many times do you see this is the biggest sale ever – 30-60% off, and yet, later on the year, they advertise the same thing claiming to be better than before.
it will never end!
The government isn’t the only one to use “bad” terminology. What about the use of “replacement cost” and “co-insurance” and many other misleading and overly used terms in the insurance industry? Just because we’ve always done it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be improved.
These guys talk about these terms and they are talking about mathematical probabilities. The average layman interprets these “predictions”. They don’t understand the math.
The big difference here though is people’s lives and livlihoods are at stake with the misrepresentative labels. I personally am beginning to feel old as in my lifetime, I have survived 2 ‘500-year’ flood events. I seriously question whether we have solid statistics here in the state of Iowa that date back to the year 1508 regarding flooding.
People gamble with their decisons to purchase insurance. Whatever you call the flood probablity is moot. If you live near a major freaking river, lake, reservoir, levee, or ocean there is ALWAYS a chance the damn thing will flood. Rolling the dice on whether to protect themselves is their problem. Notice they don’t play the same game with LIFE insurance, even thought that only occurs once.
Both of these once in a life floods and Katrina too happened with a Bush in the WHite House.
a flood plain means you should be taking your chances on the likelyhood of flooding. why did our tax dollars fund the corps of engineers constructing all of those levees if there wasn’t a good chance of flood?
quit fighting Mother Nature and learn to cope with it, and build in the appropriate places.
so this sounds like a familiar saying…so you probably will say that whomever is in office, it’s their fault..um…when did the presidency have a pact w/mother nature? and do you blame all previous incidences to the whitehouse? (i wonder, is this ROSIE?)
The presidency may not have a pact with mother nature but is it possible they started an unjustified war, spending and wasting billions of dollars, large amounts to companies like Haliburton, then give Congress budget proposals with -0- money to rebuild levees and bridges and other infrastructure ? so that when Nature did strike, the old structures weren’t able to handle it ? I haven’t researched this, maybe this isn’t the case, just asking the question. I know there is a levee project in my area that the Feds had ageed to pay to complete but funds have dried up so now city/state govt is looking to issue bonds to get it done.
There are plenty of places to build and live in the USA that you don’t need to put yourself, your family, and your property at risk by settling remotely near a water source that COULD flood.
Ed, you have an intelligent yet simple point. It is hard to swallow when people who choose to live in places that are susceptible to flood complain when the inevitable happens. For the blame-Bush whiners, get a life… I don’t read history books that blame all rations and etc. on WWII. Rather there was a spirit of USA vs. the enemy. Now I feel like we are sleeping with the enemy. too bad people won’t choose to rally around our country and face the real foes together with bravery and support for our country and its leaders. I am wondering if the US can still rightfully be labeled ‘home of the brave’… Now, back to the flooding, Cedar Rapids, IA and Iowa City, etc. were hit with a terrible and historic flood event which expanded well beyond any imaginable flood plain. I can understand why many of those people not only chose to live there, but did not have any type of flood insurance. I am told that every ins. policy excludes flood coverage.
Hey, does anyone know how United Fire in Cedar Rapids is really doing? They took over 10 feet of water in their office, website was down for a few days, now they say they have a temporary office set up in Norway, IA.
Are they getting things done? Am surprised that they were shut down for so long, glad I did not accept job from them earlier this year or I’d have been out of work for a while.
good points, Rosie. I was reading the other day that the 1993 flood was a direct result of Bush, as was the Northridge EQ, the San Francisco EQ, the oil embargo of 1973, as well as the ‘jump the shark’ episode of Happy Days.
I do worry about this country when people are so blinded by their hatreds they cannot see the light of day; scary thing is most of them vote, and worse yet, they may breed! Some can’t breed, but in some states they can marry! At least it keeps the aluminum foil folks in business; all them hats have to be reshaped and remade daily…takes allot of foil to keep Bush and Cheney from readin’ their thoughts…
Too bad she hasn’t checked in in awhile.
Liberal Arts versus Engineering/Science Degrees/Farmers
During the 60’s a lot of educators were convinced engineering students were shallow because we did not have enough liberal arts exposure. Thus we were forced to take liberal arts courses.
Which is a good idea, I have now been exposed to liberal arts. I only wish liberal arts students would have been forced to take one or two courses of engineering, science, or agriculture. Maybe then terms such as “100-year” would be as understandable as The Planets op. 32 by Gustav Holst is to me.
I include farmers as part of engineering and science because they understand which end of horse to approach, how rain works, and crop insurance.
Fred,
Thank you for recognizing that to be a Farmer you need an education including basic engineering. Other topics now stressed are advanced mathmatics, economics, professional gambling, insurance,enviromental sciences, computer science, polictical science, sociology, and of course agriculture courses. You also need to have a love for the land and be truly concerned with protecting it.
UNited Fire is up and functioning, business as usual. They are operating from a temporary location as their building is being readied for normal occupancy, their website is up and doing business as usual, but with a few hiccups due to bandwidth limitations at the temporary location.I heard that some employees are already back in the home office hq building.
Yes, since NFIP was formed back in the mid-1960s, every homeowners policy has excluded flood (surface water). In most policies it is not difficult to see that it is excluded.
The one thing that seems to go unnoticed is zoning laws that allow us to continue to build in flood plains. If you are building behind a levee that is holding back any river, why would you be surprised when the levees don’t hold? Why wouldn’t you have flood insurance, whether or not your mortgage company requires it?