In the Flood Zone, but Astonished by High Water (original) (raw)
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Pat Murphy pulling his neighbor Rob Anderson to their homes along the flooded Missouri River in South Dakota last week.Credit...Brian Lehmann for The New York Times
- July 30, 2011
DAKOTA DUNES, S.D. — Some skeptical locals offered a warning when developers transformed this mostly barren peninsula at the intersection of two rivers into an exclusive planned community, complete with million-dollar homes and a private golf course designed by Arnold Palmer.
They call it “the Dunes” for a reason, the warning went — the rivers put the sand there, and the rivers could sweep it away. But, much like the developers, the new residents were not worried. A few even paid a premium to be closest to the flowing water of the Missouri and the Big Sioux.
Now, a little more than two decades later, the stately homes on Spyglass Circle and Pebble Beach Drive have been evacuated and the 18th hole is under six feet of water, as miles of newly built levees strain to keep this community from surrendering to a historic flood.
Many residents here at the southeastern tip of the state, where it borders Nebraska and Iowa, say they never imagined this chain of events. Scott Mackie, like most of his neighbors, did not take out flood insurance on his newly built house — not because he could not afford it, he said, but because he believed the Missouri had been tamed by a system of dams and reservoirs.
“This community has been here over 20 years and never had a problem,” he said. “I didn’t think it was an issue.”
A river makes an unpredictable neighbor, as the last few months have reminded.
And now, some people are using the high waters from North Dakota to New Orleans to revisit longstanding questions about whether the very government programs designed to safeguard people from floods, including protective measures like dams and levees and recovery programs like flood insurance and disaster assistance, actually encourage them to take unnecessary chances.
“Most people don’t understand what flood risk is,” said Gerry Galloway, a civil engineering professor at the University of Maryland who has written extensively about his concerns. “They assume that if there is some level of protection like a levee or an upstream dam, they’re safe. As a general rule, public officials don’t like to dissuade them of that fact.”
Even those public officials can sometimes fall victim themselves.
As governor of South Dakota, Mike Rounds visited many flooded communities over his two terms. But when he left office this year, he moved into a house in Pierre, the state capital, right on the Missouri River. He was forced to evacuate just months later.
Like many residents in the state, he believes the flood is largely the result of mismanagement by the Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the dams. (The corps said the releases were forced by unprecedented snow and rains.)
“If I had to do it all over, I’d still purchase the same lot,” Mr. Rounds said. “I really do think it’s an aberration.”
Most of the major cities of the region — including Sioux City, just across the way in Iowa, a few miles east of Dakota Dunes — were settled on riverbanks. But even as many experts warn that climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of flooding and other natural disasters, developers continue to build homes in flood-prone areas.
“Older communities, when they were being settled, learned through trial and error where to build — that’s why Sioux City is established on higher ground,” said Paul Eckert, the city manager. “It’s only in recent decades that you’ve seen development in the lower areas like the Dunes.”
Some of that development reflects either a calculated gamble or general confusion over federal estimates of areas with higher flood risk, based on maps produced by the corps that are in the process of being revised.
Many people in these higher-risk areas mistakenly believed that a flood could not happen more than once a century — the areas are called hundred-year flood zones, based on the calculation of an annual 1 percent chance of flood. Those outside often falsely believe that they are not at risk, even though they account for about a quarter of all flood insurance claims.
But as the trailers, hot tubs and decks that have bobbed down waterways in recent weeks suggest, there is also an element of willful disbelief behind the decision to move close to rivers.
The Dakota Dunes used the twin attractions of river views and low taxes to attract wealthy professionals from the three-state Sioux City metro area.
The plot of land that had been home to about 10 people is now home to 2,600 people and 1,100 houses, which start at $175,000 — luxurious by the standards of this agricultural and industrial area.
Though developers initially urged residents to get insurance, they noted that the Missouri had been successfully controlled since the dam system was built.
After about a decade, concerns about the less predictable Big Sioux prompted the construction of a levee, which led the government to reduce the flood risk for another 160 lots — removing the flood insurance requirement and making them easier to sell.
As the years passed, those who dismissed a flood as unlikely started talking about it almost as an impossibility. Most residents dropped their flood insurance; only 172 homes in the entire county now carry it, backing studies that found that homeowners typically dropped the insurance after several dry years.
Even when the Corps of Engineers began saying record snow and rain would force unprecedented water releases from reservoirs for most of the summer, some residents considered the warnings overstated. A few homeowners refused at first to allow construction of levees on their property this spring — and were later forced to pay to have their own barriers built.
The community has spent 10millionto10 million to 10millionto15 million so far on the flood fight, most of which came from a no-interest loan from the state. It is also trying to get the federal government pay for 75 percent of the costs and the state government pay for 10 percent.
Down the road at Riv-R-Land Estates, Tom Koob looked at the rows of houses protruding from the widened river. Upset that more money and effort was focused on protecting the much larger and wealthier Dakota Dunes, Mr. Koob said he hoped for federal support to rebuild.
“I don’t want it to seem like we’re looking for a handout,” he said. “Since we didn’t get the support that some of the other communities got on the front end, it would be nice to get some support on the back end.”
Even as the evacuation extends into a third month, many residents say they have no concerns about returning to their homes. State officials say that may happen as soon as next month, when water releases are expected to be scaled back.
“Absolutely we’re going to stay,” Tim Boyle said as he stood in his emptied house.
He detailed some of the charms of river life: the bald eagles nesting on the cottonwood trees, the boat rides searching for catfish and walleye, and the summer parties on the dunes out front. And no, he was not worried about another flood.
His wife, Debbie, cut in. “There’s risk everywhere,” she said. “There’s risk in Arizona for fires, in Florida for hurricanes, in California for earthquakes.”
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