While stalling building until flood protection is done might make sense, not having a plan to provide at least a 500 year level of flood protection, which every other major river city (see graphic at http://www.levees.water.ca.gov/history/floodprotect.cfm ) has, seems ludicrous.
Stuart Leavenworth: Time to restrict building in the deepest floodplains
By Stuart Leavenworth -
Published 12:00 am PST Friday, March 2, 2007
If you've visited New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina, you've probably seen the water mark the flood left behind.
Walk around the swamped neighborhoods of the 9th Ward or Gentilly, and you see these bathtub rings on every unrepaired home, church and school building. You see them 8 feet and 12 feet above the street. You see them on the tops of roofs where trapped families used axes to hack their way out.
I thought about these water marks recently while examining a government map that shows which areas in the Central Valley could flood to a depth of 3 feet or more.
Much of Sacramento, Stockton, Marysville and other urban areas sit in this 3-foot-or-deeper zone. Parts of Natomas, Plumas Lake and Sutter County -- where developers are busy building thousands of new homes -- sit in areas with the deepest potential flooding.
