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Flood risks call for housing safety

Nancy Marshall-Genzer Jul 3, 2008
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Flood risks call for housing safety

Nancy Marshall-Genzer Jul 3, 2008
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TEXT OF STORY

Renita Jablonski: Lawmakers are already out for the Independence Day holiday, but congressional staffers are busy working to renew the National Flood Insurance Program before it expires in September. The National Wildlife Federation says climate change is making flooding far more likely. The group wants a requirement that houses be built out of harm’s way. Marketplace’s Nancy Marshall Genzer has more from Washington.


Nancy Marshall Genzer The premiums for federal flood insurance aren’t enough to keep the program above water. It’s now about $17 billion in the red. Critics want strict requirements about where and how people rebuild after a flood.

Gerald Galloway teaches engineering at the University of Maryland:

Gerald Galloway: It’s foolish for the government to keep coming back year after year and bailing people out of something that we know is a risky area.

The National Wildlife Federation says that needs to change, because global warming will increase flooding.

NWF scientist David Conrad says Congress could require stilts on low-lying houses.

David Conrad: It may make sense to build higher or try not to build at all in places that are at significant risk.

Conrad says buildings in flood plains leave no place for flood waters to go. House and Senate negotiators hope to hammer out a final flood insurance bill by late July.

In Washington, I’m Nancy Marshall Genzer for Marketplace.

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