| REPRINT: CHARLESTON DAILY MAIL
Monday February 09, 2004
West
Virginians are
accustomed
to dealing
with floods
that cost
people their
homes --
perhaps
more
accustomed
than they should be.
The first rule of flood avoidance is not to live in a floodplain. Yet some
West Virginians have rebuilt in floodplains again and again, with
predictable results.
The state Senate recently passed a bill that would give counties the power
to regulate construction in flood plains, the better to keep the same
tragedies from happening over and over again.
County commissions would be given more power to control where people
can build in unincorporated areas and allow them to set penalties when
people ignore their policies.
As things stand, flood plain managers say, they have few tools to use to
head off trouble.
Counties may decide where the floodplains are, and they may require
special permits to build in those areas. But they don't have a law that
specifies what the penalties for non-compliance are.
Take, for example, a case in Kanawha County.
The county planning department says floodwaters destroyed seven mobile
homes last June. Most of the owners of those homes didn't have flood
insurance because, they say, they were never told their homes were in or
near the floodplain.
The department found that the owner of the park had violated the terms of
a years-ago floodplain agreement.
The owner had taken no action to get
homes out of the way of the water, and had rented low-lying land to one
renter after another.
That shouldn't be.
As might be expected, not everybody is for Big Brother county
commissions being given the power to tell people where they may and
may not build.
Some people worry that it's the camel's nose under the tent
of the dreaded zoning.
West Virginians really need to grow up a little bit here and take more
responsibility for what happens to them.
People who insist on building in flood plains can't blame the fates endlessly
when God floods them out.
West Virginia needs to prevent people from building where what they
build will eventually be destroyed.
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