Iowa town rejects flood buyouts despite benefits

April 18, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

CHELSEA, Iowa

Two years ago, Larry Frese thought he’d escaped the worst of a flood that had left a lot of his neighbors’ homes and a large swath of Iowa underwater, even as overflowing Otter Creek lapped at his garage door.

“Then all of a sudden — BANG!” said Frese, recalling the sound of the garage door buckling before the muddy water rushed in. “Here comes the refrigerator bouncing by. Man, that was sickening.”

It wasn’t the first time his home was flooded, and it probably won’t be the last. But Frese and his neighbors in tiny Chelsea are not interested in being bought out of their homes by the government for the chance to start over on higher ground. Neither do handfuls of other flood-prone Midwest towns caught in a cycle of flood and rebuild.

“I love this town too much to leave,” the 69-year-old tavern owner said.

Many mitigation experts say such buyouts are the most cost-effective way of fighting floods in the most at-risk areas. The government buys homes in these areas and tears them down, replacing them with green space, parks or wildlife refuges. When the next flood comes, taxpayers don’t have to pay for sandbagging, emergency shelters, rescues or cleanup.

But such buyouts are voluntary, and despite the clear benefits they’ve brought to some flood-beleaguered towns that opted in, many communities refuse to budge — content to fight a losing battle against flooding every few years and rebuild.

“It’s a big benefit to the nation when you don’t have to come back the next time and the next time and the next time,” said Larry Larson, director of the Association of Floodplain Managers.

Battling floods is expensive, but how expensive isn’t clear. The Federal Emergency Management Administration was unable to say how much the government has spent fighting floods and cleaning up afterward since a massive flood that devastated a large swath of the Midwest in 1993. Experts estimate the cost at several billion dollars.

According to a 2005 study the independent Multihazard Mitigation Council conducted for Congress, every dollar spent on disaster mitigation saves $4 in future costs. In the case of floods, most of that money spent on mitigation would go for buyouts.

The government generally doesn’t pay to rebuild damaged homes in flood plains — homeowners or their insurers do. Those living in the most flood-prone areas who have federally backed mortgages and whose communities participate in the National Flood Insurance Program are required to purchase flood policies. The policies are sold through private insurers but are heavily subsidized by the government. A few private companies also offer policies.

FEMA introduced its buyout program after the 1993 flood.