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Comment by astalwick | Hacker News Reader

The cities are already there. That's a done deal.

And of the people that live there, not everyone lives there because they CHOSE it. Not everyone has the ability to up and move to a newer, safer city simply because they're worried about floods.

It's just not that easy.

So, given that cities ARE built on flood plains, and that flood insurance IS refused for those people that live there, what are we going to do? Abandon them entirely when a flood happens?

Good luck with that. What do you think will happen to the government that says "too damn bad, you should've moved?"

By the way, if you think Winnipeg is 'beach houses for the rich,' dude.. yeah..

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Why do you (and raganwald) portray the choice as assistance-or-total-abandonment?

Sure, provide infrequent rescues, emergency aid, and damage-mitigation. Just avoid complete 'make-whole' reimbursements, and make the costs come marginally more from those areas subject to frequent, foreseeable disasters... so that there's an incentive gradient for future moves/development to get-out-of-the-danger-zones. Not a "too bad" all-or-nothing ultimatum, but also not blank-checks for folly.

Otherwise, you're subsidizing more destruction and misery. That has been a real legacy of much unconditionally-'compassionate' weather aid, at least in USA flood and hurricane zones.

I've never lost a house because of a flood or hurricane or whatever, but I'm pretty sure that governments don't do make-whole reimbursements. Could be wrong..

That said, at least in Canada, I believe that federal, provincial and municipal governments share the burden of paying for restoration after a disaster. That is more or less what you suggest - there's a slight incentive to move away from Manitoba (for example), because they instituted a tax-hike to pay for their last flood. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/story/2012/04/17/mb-b...

Or do what Western Europe did : FIX the country layout so the danger zones stop being danger zones.

We do actually have the ability to prevent a lot of this. Flood zones, dams, flood plans, ...

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