Discussion: View Thread

Areas of the Midwest have been battered by the aftermath of March's "bomb cyclone" snowstorms. The resulting combination of fast-melting snow and additional rains has led to significant flooding across several states. Dams, bridges, levees, and other infrastructure have been wiped out or severely damaged. If you are looking for opportunities to contribute to the relief effort, you can do so here. 

If you live and/or work within the region, please use this thread to share your experiences. If you've dealt with similar flooding, do you have any advice to share?

------------------------------
Tirza Austin Aff.M.ASCE
ASCE
Reston VA
(703)295-6053
------------------------------

Thank you Tirza for initiating such an important issue in a timely manner.

Perhaps this is the first of its kind as a major storm event or events in association with Polar Vortex – causing untold miseries to the people of Midwest. News threads show damaged and threatened infrastructure, flood protection measures, etc. Here again we are seeing something unprecedented in a catastrophic scale – that shows the need for revisiting and re-evaluation of our planning and engineering approaches to water management.

Perhaps this is another example of the long hand of climate change – it is reaching or likely to reach all livelihoods, irrespective of where one lives.

Here is a NASA link to the storm events I picked up:

https://disasters.nasa.gov/midwest-flooding-march-2019

 

------------------------------
Dr. Dilip Barua, Ph.D, P.Eng, M. ASCE
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Website: https://widecanvas.weebly.com
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-25-2019 14:22
From: Tirza Austin
Subject: Widespread Floods Test Resilience of Midwest

Areas of the Midwest have been battered by the aftermath of March's "bomb cyclone" snowstorms. The resulting combination of fast-melting snow and additional rains has led to significant flooding across several states. Dams, bridges, levees, and other infrastructure have been wiped out or severely damaged. If you live and/or work within the region, please use this thread to share your experiences. If you've dealt with similar flooding, do you have any advice to share?

------------------------------
Tirza Austin Aff.M.ASCE
ASCE
Reston VA
(703)295-6053
------------------------------

This is a great thread. My prayers go out to all who are suffering as a result of this disaster. 

I believe one engineering tool that can be brought to bear to mitigate these problems is better risk assessment. Could we have identified in advance those levees which, if repaired before the storms, could have prevented the most expensive and devastating floods?  Yes, our resources are limited, but if we focus our expenditures on those areas which risk assessment points us to, cant we mitigate the terrible human suffering and economic losses?

------------------------------
Bevin Beaudet P.E.,M.ASCE
Bevin A. Beaudet, P.E., LLC.
West Palm Beach FL
(561)373-4442
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-25-2019 14:22
From: Tirza Austin
Subject: Widespread Floods Test Resilience of Midwest

Areas of the Midwest have been battered by the aftermath of March's "bomb cyclone" snowstorms. The resulting combination of fast-melting snow and additional rains has led to significant flooding across several states. Dams, bridges, levees, and other infrastructure have been wiped out or severely damaged. If you are looking for opportunities to contribute to the relief effort, you can do so here.

If you live and/or work within the region, please use this thread to share your experiences. If you've dealt with similar flooding, do you have any advice to share?

------------------------------
Tirza Austin Aff.M.ASCE
ASCE
Reston VA
(703)295-6053
------------------------------

Tirza, Thanks for your post. Having lived in the New Orleans area during Katrina and Houston area during Harvey I've been an eyewitness to flooding damage and consequential fallout.  It's heartbreaking to see flooding that has taken place in the Midwest. While the causes and conditions are different from Katrina and Harvey, there are many similarities including the failure and shortcomings of man-made infrastructure.  I think ASCE has an opportunity to start connecting the dots across these failures and walking the talk. The Society did a tremendous job in reviewing what went wrong during Katrina and developing a comprehensive set of impactful recommendations – many of which have general applicability – but to my knowledge never really held anyone accountable for implementation or followup. These "Call-to-Action"(s) can be found in Chapter 9 of the Society's External Review Panel report https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/ciegag.0000126.

------------------------------
Mitchell Winkler P.E., M.ASCE
Retired oil and gas professional
Houston TX
832-922-7570
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-25-2019 14:22
From: Tirza Austin
Subject: Widespread Floods Test Resilience of Midwest

Areas of the Midwest have been battered by the aftermath of March's "bomb cyclone" snowstorms. The resulting combination of fast-melting snow and additional rains has led to significant flooding across several states. Dams, bridges, levees, and other infrastructure have been wiped out or severely damaged. If you are looking for opportunities to contribute to the relief effort, you can do so here.

If you live and/or work within the region, please use this thread to share your experiences. If you've dealt with similar flooding, do you have any advice to share?

------------------------------
Tirza Austin Aff.M.ASCE
ASCE
Reston VA
(703)295-6053
------------------------------

For those who are not aware, the Texas Section examined the current approach to flood risk following Hurricane Harvey. The report, Addressing Flood Risk: A Path Forward for Texas After Hurricane Harvey, gives 27 policy recommendations for improved flood risk at the local, state, and national level.  While a number of recommendations are specific to Texas, I think it's a good starting place for those who want to know more about this topic.

One of the major points made in the report is that flood risk management must be done on a watershed basis. Right now, the task of managing flood risk is typically aggregated at the local level based on political boundaries and at the federal level among a number of different agencies. Consequently, there can be a lack of consistency in management practices based on the various jurisdictions in a watershed that are physically tied together.

Additionally, there is not a clearly defined leadership hierarchy for flood risk management.  In 2013, ASCE reviewed the progress that had (or had not) been made since Hurricane Katrina and found that the lack of a single organization that is responsible for developing national policies allows for areas of the flood risk management structure to fall through the cracks. Simply put, one of their recommendations was to "put someone in charge".

The 1968 National Flood Insurance Act required the preparation of a unified national program (UNP) for flood management, however the last UNP for flood management was published during the Clinton Administration in 1995 and is out of date. Developing a modern UNP would be a huge step in the right direction because it would clearly identify who is responsible for what. In 2007, Congress also called for a national flood vulnerability study after Hurricane Katrina, but has not funded such a study in the 12 years since.

While there is a lot that needs to be done on the local level to get communities and jurisdictions to work together (and I highly recommend you read the Texas Section's report to see what that might look like at the state level), at the federal level we need to identify where we are vulnerable and have a national framework for addressing the risks on a regional basis. Funding is absolutely a limiting factor, but money alone will not solve the problem if we don't have a strategic approach to distributing it. Moreover, bringing people together and getting collective buy-in is one way to leverage resources to make large scale improvements.

------------------------------
Andrew Wells A.M.ASCE
Juneau AK
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-25-2019 14:22
From: Tirza Austin
Subject: Widespread Floods Test Resilience of Midwest

Areas of the Midwest have been battered by the aftermath of March's "bomb cyclone" snowstorms. The resulting combination of fast-melting snow and additional rains has led to significant flooding across several states. Dams, bridges, levees, and other infrastructure have been wiped out or severely damaged. If you are looking for opportunities to contribute to the relief effort, you can do so here.

If you live and/or work within the region, please use this thread to share your experiences. If you've dealt with similar flooding, do you have any advice to share?

------------------------------
Tirza Austin Aff.M.ASCE
ASCE
Reston VA
(703)295-6053
------------------------------

Andrew Wells-
Your concerns about emergency response to natural disasters are great.  We have similar issues in Arkansas.  Do you have a link to the Hurricane Harvey report? 
Thank you much, 

Clark McWilliams
Arkansas Dept. of Env. Quality



Original Message:
Sent: 03-29-2019 12:42
From: Andrew Wells
Subject: Widespread Floods Test Resilience of Midwest

For those who are not aware, the Texas Section examined the current approach to flood risk following Hurricane Harvey. The report, Addressing Flood Risk: A Path Forward for Texas After Hurricane Harvey, gives 27 policy recommendations for improved flood risk at the local, state, and national level.  While a number of recommendations are specific to Texas, I think it's a good starting place for those who want to know more about this topic.

One of the major points made in the report is that flood risk management must be done on a watershed basis. Right now, the task of managing flood risk is typically aggregated at the local level based on political boundaries and at the federal level among a number of different agencies. Consequently, there can be a lack of consistency in management practices based on the various jurisdictions in a watershed that are physically tied together.

Additionally, there is not a clearly defined leadership hierarchy for flood risk management.  In 2013, ASCE reviewed the progress that had (or had not) been made since Hurricane Katrina and found that the lack of a single organization that is responsible for developing national policies allows for areas of the flood risk management structure to fall through the cracks. Simply put, one of their recommendations was to "put someone in charge".

The 1968 National Flood Insurance Act required the preparation of a unified national program (UNP) for flood management, however the last UNP for flood management was published during the Clinton Administration in 1995 and is out of date. Developing a modern UNP would be a huge step in the right direction because it would clearly identify who is responsible for what. In 2007, Congress also called for a national flood vulnerability study after Hurricane Katrina, but has not funded such a study in the 12 years since.

While there is a lot that needs to be done on the local level to get communities and jurisdictions to work together (and I highly recommend you read the Texas Section's report to see what that might look like at the state level), at the federal level we need to identify where we are vulnerable and have a national framework for addressing the risks on a regional basis. Funding is absolutely a limiting factor, but money alone will not solve the problem if we don't have a strategic approach to distributing it. Moreover, bringing people together and getting collective buy-in is one way to leverage resources to make large scale improvements.

------------------------------
Andrew Wells A.M.ASCE
Juneau AK

Original Message:
Sent: 03-25-2019 14:22
From: Tirza Austin
Subject: Widespread Floods Test Resilience of Midwest

Areas of the Midwest have been battered by the aftermath of March's "bomb cyclone" snowstorms. The resulting combination of fast-melting snow and additional rains has led to significant flooding across several states. Dams, bridges, levees, and other infrastructure have been wiped out or severely damaged. If you are looking for opportunities to contribute to the relief effort, you can do so here.

If you live and/or work within the region, please use this thread to share your experiences. If you've dealt with similar flooding, do you have any advice to share?

------------------------------
Tirza Austin Aff.M.ASCE
ASCE
Reston VA
(703)295-6053
------------------------------

Clark McWilliams -
I would also encourage you to look at the ERP report from Katrina. I posted a link earlier.

------------------------------
Mitchell Winkler M.ASCE,R.Eng
Houston TX
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 04-01-2019 08:22
From: Clark McWilliams
Subject: Widespread Floods Test Resilience of Midwest

Andrew Wells-
Your concerns about emergency response to natural disasters are great.  We have similar issues in Arkansas.  Do you have a link to the Hurricane Harvey report?
Thank you much,

Clark McWilliams
Arkansas Dept. of Env. Quality



Original Message:
Sent: 03-29-2019 12:42
From: Andrew Wells
Subject: Widespread Floods Test Resilience of Midwest

For those who are not aware, the Texas Section examined the current approach to flood risk following Hurricane Harvey. The report, Addressing Flood Risk: A Path Forward for Texas After Hurricane Harvey, gives 27 policy recommendations for improved flood risk at the local, state, and national level.  While a number of recommendations are specific to Texas, I think it's a good starting place for those who want to know more about this topic.

One of the major points made in the report is that flood risk management must be done on a watershed basis. Right now, the task of managing flood risk is typically aggregated at the local level based on political boundaries and at the federal level among a number of different agencies. Consequently, there can be a lack of consistency in management practices based on the various jurisdictions in a watershed that are physically tied together.

Additionally, there is not a clearly defined leadership hierarchy for flood risk management.  In 2013, ASCE reviewed the progress that had (or had not) been made since Hurricane Katrina and found that the lack of a single organization that is responsible for developing national policies allows for areas of the flood risk management structure to fall through the cracks. Simply put, one of their recommendations was to "put someone in charge".

The 1968 National Flood Insurance Act required the preparation of a unified national program (UNP) for flood management, however the last UNP for flood management was published during the Clinton Administration in 1995 and is out of date. Developing a modern UNP would be a huge step in the right direction because it would clearly identify who is responsible for what. In 2007, Congress also called for a national flood vulnerability study after Hurricane Katrina, but has not funded such a study in the 12 years since.

While there is a lot that needs to be done on the local level to get communities and jurisdictions to work together (and I highly recommend you read the Texas Section's report to see what that might look like at the state level), at the federal level we need to identify where we are vulnerable and have a national framework for addressing the risks on a regional basis. Funding is absolutely a limiting factor, but money alone will not solve the problem if we don't have a strategic approach to distributing it. Moreover, bringing people together and getting collective buy-in is one way to leverage resources to make large scale improvements.

------------------------------
Andrew Wells A.M.ASCE
Juneau AK

Original Message:
Sent: 03-25-2019 14:22
From: Tirza Austin
Subject: Widespread Floods Test Resilience of Midwest

Areas of the Midwest have been battered by the aftermath of March's "bomb cyclone" snowstorms. The resulting combination of fast-melting snow and additional rains has led to significant flooding across several states. Dams, bridges, levees, and other infrastructure have been wiped out or severely damaged. If you are looking for opportunities to contribute to the relief effort, you can do so here.

If you live and/or work within the region, please use this thread to share your experiences. If you've dealt with similar flooding, do you have any advice to share?

------------------------------
Tirza Austin Aff.M.ASCE
ASCE
Reston VA
(703)295-6053
------------------------------

My apologies for not including a link to the Hurricane Harvey report. It can be found on the Texas Section's website here:

Addressing Flood Risk + Publications + Texas After Hurricane Harvey

American Society of Civil Engineers - Texas Section		remove preview
Addressing Flood Risk + Publications + Texas After Hurricane Harvey In August 2017, Hurricane Harvey caused extreme flooding across Houston and other areas of Southeast Texas. After experiencing a months-long recovery due to the widespread damage, members of the Texas Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) developed a series of comprehensive policy recommendations to better manage flood risk during extreme storms. To learn more about these recommendations, please download the report file below. View this on American Society of Civil Engineers - Texas Section >

In full disclosure, I lived in Port Arthur, TX during Hurricane Harvey and chaired the committee that wrote this report. The Texas Section as a whole has been extremely active pushing for changes and have provided comment and/or testimony on several bills currently working their way through the Texas Legislature.  If people in other states are interested in knowing more about our findings, please don't hesitate to reach out.

The 2013 report that I mentioned can also be found here:

https://ascelibrary.org/doi/pdf/10.1061/9780784478585

Ascelibrary		remove preview
View this on Ascelibrary >

------------------------------
Andrew Wells A.M.ASCE
Juneau AK
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 04-01-2019 08:22
From: Clark McWilliams
Subject: Widespread Floods Test Resilience of Midwest

Andrew Wells-
Your concerns about emergency response to natural disasters are great.  We have similar issues in Arkansas.  Do you have a link to the Hurricane Harvey report?
Thank you much,

Clark McWilliams
Arkansas Dept. of Env. Quality



Original Message:
Sent: 03-29-2019 12:42
From: Andrew Wells
Subject: Widespread Floods Test Resilience of Midwest

For those who are not aware, the Texas Section examined the current approach to flood risk following Hurricane Harvey. The report, Addressing Flood Risk: A Path Forward for Texas After Hurricane Harvey, gives 27 policy recommendations for improved flood risk at the local, state, and national level.  While a number of recommendations are specific to Texas, I think it's a good starting place for those who want to know more about this topic.

One of the major points made in the report is that flood risk management must be done on a watershed basis. Right now, the task of managing flood risk is typically aggregated at the local level based on political boundaries and at the federal level among a number of different agencies. Consequently, there can be a lack of consistency in management practices based on the various jurisdictions in a watershed that are physically tied together.

Additionally, there is not a clearly defined leadership hierarchy for flood risk management.  In 2013, ASCE reviewed the progress that had (or had not) been made since Hurricane Katrina and found that the lack of a single organization that is responsible for developing national policies allows for areas of the flood risk management structure to fall through the cracks. Simply put, one of their recommendations was to "put someone in charge".

The 1968 National Flood Insurance Act required the preparation of a unified national program (UNP) for flood management, however the last UNP for flood management was published during the Clinton Administration in 1995 and is out of date. Developing a modern UNP would be a huge step in the right direction because it would clearly identify who is responsible for what. In 2007, Congress also called for a national flood vulnerability study after Hurricane Katrina, but has not funded such a study in the 12 years since.

While there is a lot that needs to be done on the local level to get communities and jurisdictions to work together (and I highly recommend you read the Texas Section's report to see what that might look like at the state level), at the federal level we need to identify where we are vulnerable and have a national framework for addressing the risks on a regional basis. Funding is absolutely a limiting factor, but money alone will not solve the problem if we don't have a strategic approach to distributing it. Moreover, bringing people together and getting collective buy-in is one way to leverage resources to make large scale improvements.

------------------------------
Andrew Wells A.M.ASCE
Juneau AK

Original Message:
Sent: 03-25-2019 14:22
From: Tirza Austin
Subject: Widespread Floods Test Resilience of Midwest

Areas of the Midwest have been battered by the aftermath of March's "bomb cyclone" snowstorms. The resulting combination of fast-melting snow and additional rains has led to significant flooding across several states. Dams, bridges, levees, and other infrastructure have been wiped out or severely damaged. If you are looking for opportunities to contribute to the relief effort, you can do so here.

If you live and/or work within the region, please use this thread to share your experiences. If you've dealt with similar flooding, do you have any advice to share?

------------------------------
Tirza Austin Aff.M.ASCE
ASCE
Reston VA
(703)295-6053
------------------------------

A society's way of testing the resilience of people to cope with Natural disasters – is like admitting the inability (or even failure) of existing management policies and frameworks to deliver. But following the contributions of Mitchell Winkler and Andrew Wells about the ASCE initiative and recommendations on the flooding issues of Hurricanes Harvey and Katrina, one can only hope that suffering people will get some relief. These and the Midwest flooding problems indicate the overriding power of jurisdictional authorities, sometimes at the cost of sacrificing the necessity for integrated basin-wide flood and water-management approach. The necessity is apparent in the aspects of meteorology, hydrology and hydraulics that have supra-geographical-boundaries beyond political demarcations.  

Flood, and broadly water management issues within the basin-wide policy framework have taken a back seat – perhaps gradually over time – even though there was the National Flood Control Act of 1936 (if you have not seen this before, please have a look at the discussion in the attached publicly available WMO report on the Mississippi River Flood Management). The changes led to the shifting of focus from what is scientifically reasonable – to the interests of state and county jurisdictions administered by water management districts.
 
Perhaps this is another sad example of devolution of powers – although intentions were good – but in an aggressive social fabric, one should not be surprised to see the political leaders muscling their powers (in addition, they may be provoked by our media friends who rush to label participants as winner or loser).

But the problem exists in all countries around the world. Only recently, EU issued a Water Framework Directive in 2010 as a necessity for integrated water resources management across EU countries.

------------------------------
Dr. Dilip Barua, Ph.D, P.Eng, M. ASCE
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Website: https://widecanvas.weebly.com
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 04-01-2019 12:17
From: Andrew Wells
Subject: Widespread Floods Test Resilience of Midwest

My apologies for not including a link to the Hurricane Harvey report. It can be found on the Texas Section's website here:

Addressing Flood Risk + Publications + Texas After Hurricane Harvey

American Society of Civil Engineers - Texas Section		remove preview
Addressing Flood Risk + Publications + Texas After Hurricane Harvey In August 2017, Hurricane Harvey caused extreme flooding across Houston and other areas of Southeast Texas. After experiencing a months-long recovery due to the widespread damage, members of the Texas Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) developed a series of comprehensive policy recommendations to better manage flood risk during extreme storms. To learn more about these recommendations, please download the report file below. View this on American Society of Civil Engineers - Texas Section >

In full disclosure, I lived in Port Arthur, TX during Hurricane Harvey and chaired the committee that wrote this report. The Texas Section as a whole has been extremely active pushing for changes and have provided comment and/or testimony on several bills currently working their way through the Texas Legislature.  If people in other states are interested in knowing more about our findings, please don't hesitate to reach out.

The 2013 report that I mentioned can also be found here:

https://ascelibrary.org/doi/pdf/10.1061/9780784478585

Ascelibrary		remove preview
View this on Ascelibrary >

------------------------------
Andrew Wells A.M.ASCE
Juneau AK

Original Message:
Sent: 04-01-2019 08:22
From: Clark McWilliams
Subject: Widespread Floods Test Resilience of Midwest

Andrew Wells-
Your concerns about emergency response to natural disasters are great.  We have similar issues in Arkansas.  Do you have a link to the Hurricane Harvey report?
Thank you much,

Clark McWilliams
Arkansas Dept. of Env. Quality



Original Message:
Sent: 03-29-2019 12:42
From: Andrew Wells
Subject: Widespread Floods Test Resilience of Midwest

For those who are not aware, the Texas Section examined the current approach to flood risk following Hurricane Harvey. The report, Addressing Flood Risk: A Path Forward for Texas After Hurricane Harvey, gives 27 policy recommendations for improved flood risk at the local, state, and national level.  While a number of recommendations are specific to Texas, I think it's a good starting place for those who want to know more about this topic.

One of the major points made in the report is that flood risk management must be done on a watershed basis. Right now, the task of managing flood risk is typically aggregated at the local level based on political boundaries and at the federal level among a number of different agencies. Consequently, there can be a lack of consistency in management practices based on the various jurisdictions in a watershed that are physically tied together.

Additionally, there is not a clearly defined leadership hierarchy for flood risk management.  In 2013, ASCE reviewed the progress that had (or had not) been made since Hurricane Katrina and found that the lack of a single organization that is responsible for developing national policies allows for areas of the flood risk management structure to fall through the cracks. Simply put, one of their recommendations was to "put someone in charge".

The 1968 National Flood Insurance Act required the preparation of a unified national program (UNP) for flood management, however the last UNP for flood management was published during the Clinton Administration in 1995 and is out of date. Developing a modern UNP would be a huge step in the right direction because it would clearly identify who is responsible for what. In 2007, Congress also called for a national flood vulnerability study after Hurricane Katrina, but has not funded such a study in the 12 years since.

While there is a lot that needs to be done on the local level to get communities and jurisdictions to work together (and I highly recommend you read the Texas Section's report to see what that might look like at the state level), at the federal level we need to identify where we are vulnerable and have a national framework for addressing the risks on a regional basis. Funding is absolutely a limiting factor, but money alone will not solve the problem if we don't have a strategic approach to distributing it. Moreover, bringing people together and getting collective buy-in is one way to leverage resources to make large scale improvements.

------------------------------
Andrew Wells A.M.ASCE
Juneau AK

Original Message:
Sent: 03-25-2019 14:22
From: Tirza Austin
Subject: Widespread Floods Test Resilience of Midwest

Areas of the Midwest have been battered by the aftermath of March's "bomb cyclone" snowstorms. The resulting combination of fast-melting snow and additional rains has led to significant flooding across several states. Dams, bridges, levees, and other infrastructure have been wiped out or severely damaged. If you are looking for opportunities to contribute to the relief effort, you can do so here.

If you live and/or work within the region, please use this thread to share your experiences. If you've dealt with similar flooding, do you have any advice to share?

------------------------------
Tirza Austin Aff.M.ASCE
ASCE
Reston VA
(703)295-6053
------------------------------

For those who are interested in yet another report, the National Academies of of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine also just released the attached report, Framing the Challenge of Urban Flooding in the United States, today. This was developed at FEMA's request and looks at flooding events in Baltimore, Houston, Chicago, and Phoenix as well as other information. I have not read this yet, but I think could be of interest to those following this thread.

From the summary: "The objective [of this report] was to contribute to existing knowledge by providing some real-world examples in specific places, based largely on regional workshops, and not to provide a comprehensive overview of urban flooding in the United States."

------------------------------
Andrew Wells A.M.ASCE
Juneau AK
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 04-02-2019 14:09
From: Dilip Barua
Subject: Widespread Floods Test Resilience of Midwest

A society's way of testing the resilience of people to cope with Natural disasters – is like admitting the inability (or even failure) of existing management policies and frameworks to deliver. But following the contributions of Mitchell Winkler and Andrew Wells about the ASCE initiative and recommendations on the flooding issues of Hurricanes Harvey and Katrina, one can only hope that suffering people will get some relief. These and the Midwest flooding problems indicate the overriding power of jurisdictional authorities, sometimes at the cost of sacrificing the necessity for integrated basin-wide flood and water-management approach. The necessity is apparent in the aspects of meteorology, hydrology and hydraulics that have supra-geographical-boundaries beyond political demarcations.  

Flood, and broadly water management issues within the basin-wide policy framework have taken a back seat – perhaps gradually over time – even though there was the National Flood Control Act of 1936 (if you have not seen this before, please have a look at the discussion in the attached publicly available WMO report on the Mississippi River Flood Management). The changes led to the shifting of focus from what is scientifically reasonable – to the interests of state and county jurisdictions administered by water management districts.

Perhaps this is another sad example of devolution of powers – although intentions were good – but in an aggressive social fabric, one should not be surprised to see the political leaders muscling their powers (in addition, they may be provoked by our media friends who rush to label participants as winner or loser).

But the problem exists in all countries around the world. Only recently, EU issued a Water Framework Directive in 2010 as a necessity for integrated water resources management across EU countries.

------------------------------
Dr. Dilip Barua, Ph.D, P.Eng, M. ASCE
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Website: https://widecanvas.weebly.com

Original Message:
Sent: 04-01-2019 12:17
From: Andrew Wells
Subject: Widespread Floods Test Resilience of Midwest

My apologies for not including a link to the Hurricane Harvey report. It can be found on the Texas Section's website here:

Addressing Flood Risk + Publications + Texas After Hurricane Harvey

American Society of Civil Engineers - Texas Section		remove preview
Addressing Flood Risk + Publications + Texas After Hurricane Harvey In August 2017, Hurricane Harvey caused extreme flooding across Houston and other areas of Southeast Texas. After experiencing a months-long recovery due to the widespread damage, members of the Texas Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) developed a series of comprehensive policy recommendations to better manage flood risk during extreme storms. To learn more about these recommendations, please download the report file below. View this on American Society of Civil Engineers - Texas Section >

In full disclosure, I lived in Port Arthur, TX during Hurricane Harvey and chaired the committee that wrote this report. The Texas Section as a whole has been extremely active pushing for changes and have provided comment and/or testimony on several bills currently working their way through the Texas Legislature.  If people in other states are interested in knowing more about our findings, please don't hesitate to reach out.

The 2013 report that I mentioned can also be found here:

https://ascelibrary.org/doi/pdf/10.1061/9780784478585

Ascelibrary		remove preview
View this on Ascelibrary >

------------------------------
Andrew Wells A.M.ASCE
Juneau AK

Original Message:
Sent: 04-01-2019 08:22
From: Clark McWilliams
Subject: Widespread Floods Test Resilience of Midwest

Andrew Wells-
Your concerns about emergency response to natural disasters are great.  We have similar issues in Arkansas.  Do you have a link to the Hurricane Harvey report?
Thank you much,

Clark McWilliams
Arkansas Dept. of Env. Quality



Original Message:
Sent: 03-29-2019 12:42
From: Andrew Wells
Subject: Widespread Floods Test Resilience of Midwest

For those who are not aware, the Texas Section examined the current approach to flood risk following Hurricane Harvey. The report, Addressing Flood Risk: A Path Forward for Texas After Hurricane Harvey, gives 27 policy recommendations for improved flood risk at the local, state, and national level.  While a number of recommendations are specific to Texas, I think it's a good starting place for those who want to know more about this topic.

One of the major points made in the report is that flood risk management must be done on a watershed basis. Right now, the task of managing flood risk is typically aggregated at the local level based on political boundaries and at the federal level among a number of different agencies. Consequently, there can be a lack of consistency in management practices based on the various jurisdictions in a watershed that are physically tied together.

Additionally, there is not a clearly defined leadership hierarchy for flood risk management.  In 2013, ASCE reviewed the progress that had (or had not) been made since Hurricane Katrina and found that the lack of a single organization that is responsible for developing national policies allows for areas of the flood risk management structure to fall through the cracks. Simply put, one of their recommendations was to "put someone in charge".

The 1968 National Flood Insurance Act required the preparation of a unified national program (UNP) for flood management, however the last UNP for flood management was published during the Clinton Administration in 1995 and is out of date. Developing a modern UNP would be a huge step in the right direction because it would clearly identify who is responsible for what. In 2007, Congress also called for a national flood vulnerability study after Hurricane Katrina, but has not funded such a study in the 12 years since.

While there is a lot that needs to be done on the local level to get communities and jurisdictions to work together (and I highly recommend you read the Texas Section's report to see what that might look like at the state level), at the federal level we need to identify where we are vulnerable and have a national framework for addressing the risks on a regional basis. Funding is absolutely a limiting factor, but money alone will not solve the problem if we don't have a strategic approach to distributing it. Moreover, bringing people together and getting collective buy-in is one way to leverage resources to make large scale improvements.

------------------------------
Andrew Wells A.M.ASCE
Juneau AK

Original Message:
Sent: 03-25-2019 14:22
From: Tirza Austin
Subject: Widespread Floods Test Resilience of Midwest

Areas of the Midwest have been battered by the aftermath of March's "bomb cyclone" snowstorms. The resulting combination of fast-melting snow and additional rains has led to significant flooding across several states. Dams, bridges, levees, and other infrastructure have been wiped out or severely damaged. If you are looking for opportunities to contribute to the relief effort, you can do so here.

If you live and/or work within the region, please use this thread to share your experiences. If you've dealt with similar flooding, do you have any advice to share?

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Tirza Austin Aff.M.ASCE
ASCE
Reston VA
(703)295-6053
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