Many small towns next to rivers that often flood have created city parks with ball fields and picnic areas in the flood planes.
The old mills that were built in the 1800's for water power were bought out and torn down. The homes in these flood planes were bought ( once ), torn down, and the families moved to higher ground.
I remember even whole towns were moved to higher ground.
Building and/or rebuilding with federal tax money below sea level or in a flood plane makes no common sense.
We should only bail them out once...not after every storm.
Wouldn't be surprised if we end up with an assigned risk pool like like the way flood insurance is run for wildland fire.
Catastrophic flooding can hit almost anywhere based on too much rain coming down too fast, but building in an area that is in the 100 year flood plain starts to ask for trouble...and if you are even lower down, you will have trouble.
Some problems happen because cities allow development in at risk areas. I've seen places you KNOW will get landslides, or be at risk for fire, or flood, and they still let developers develop.
Those people (the government people who approve the development) ought to be personally liable when the disaster happens.
I've been in 3 100 year floods and two freak heavy rain floods. Personally haven't been flooded out in any of them, but came close once.
I've seen people building in areas they think are safe because there are damns upstream, but my gut instinct said "this is dangerous!".
But some years, to keep the dams from damage, they have to slip water out of the dam that will make the river be above flood stage. They had to do that in Boise this year.
If you want to live in those areas, you really need to be required to self-insure.
We should only bail them out once...not after every storm.
I wouldn't even bail them out once if they built knowing that is was a flood plain. NO is many feet below sea level. Of course it's going to flood at some point. Could have been later rather than sooner, but we knew that it was going to happen.
If I were one of those people, I'd move from NO and never go back.