Hacker News Reader

> The other issue I see is that for some reason Houston didn't require all of these people to have flood insurance.

They do for 100-year plains, just not 500-year. Are these requirements common elsewhere for 500-year? I am not sure, but I assume so since there is surprise that "for some reason Houston didn't require" it.

View on HN

I didn't understand this comment until I started to check out the FEMA maps myself. Indeed, almost all of Houston is in the "0.2% annual chance of flooding" zone (once every 500 years). To help put that in perspective, you can zoom into almost any area in the US and there will be a 20-30' zone on either side of almost any waterway (I'm talking very small rivers / creeks in my area) that has the same risk of flooding and I'd bet good money no one would criticize someone for not buying flood insurance in these zones.

Really nails home how overly critical we can be.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com