'Disasters are a human choice': Texas counties have little power to stop building in flood-prone areas

“Everybody is drawn to water,” said Christopher Steubing, who heads the Texas Floodplain Management Association. “It becomes challenging when you’re telling people what they can and cannot do with their property. It’s a delicate balance, especially in Texas.”

Sure, just have a waiver then: no rescuers, no bailouts, no insurance. Like on a boat, you can get a free floating device and maybe some sealed food bags.

Determining what can be built on flood plains is largely left to local officials, who may feel uneasy about limiting what property owners do with their land — especially in a state like Texas, known for prioritizing personal liberty — for fear that doing so will harm the local economy or lead to retribution against them at the ballot box, experts said.

Again, end the subsidies in money and risk mitigation. Let them figure out flood-proof housing, maybe building on stilts.

“Fundamentally, disasters are a human choice,” said Paterson, who specializes in land use and environmental planning. “We can choose to develop in relation to high risk, or we can choose not to. We can stay out of harm’s way.”

See: Optimism bias

“States are the right level of government to do this because they’re close enough to their communities to understand what is needed in different parts of the state and to have regulations that make sense,” Rumbach said. “But they’re far enough away from local governments that we can’t have this race to the bottom where some places are just the Wild West, and they’re able to build whatever they want while others are trying to be responsible stewards of safety and lower property damage.”

Excellent point about that Race-to-the-bottom condition. But that's also why a lot of people are moving to Texas, no? I'm not sure what the best strategies are to stop that race. I know that actually having serious regulations which are enforced usually stops the race to the bottom. Cooperation seems unlikely in this case. Having information about the situation would help, but the agencies that can build and provide that information are under attack by the new regime (if you want to buy a house in a flood plain, you should be able to check in a database if the location is at risk of flooding and then you don't buy it because it would be reckless and stupid.)

Of course, actual solutions require things like "socialism", such as social housing built in safe areas.

If Texas was not obsessed with single-family housing, then it would be much easier to get people to build in safer areas