Bill Dedman Quotes

In New York, FEMA granted the Mamaroneck Beach & Yacht Club's request to be remapped from the high-risk flood zone in August 2012 - just two months before the club was damaged and its outbuildings destroyed by Hurricane Sandy, which stacked up yachts at its docks like pick-up sticks.

NBC News found that FEMA has redrawn maps even for properties that have repeatedly filed claims for flood losses from previous storms. At least some of the properties are on the secret 'repetitive loss list' that FEMA sends to communities to alert them to problem properties.

I was involved in some of the very first meetings that created the maps that showed what would happen if you had a Category 1, 2 or 3 hurricane in New York.

We cannot watch another family lose everything - risking their lives and the lives of the first responders sent to rescue them - because the flood insurance program's seal of government approval fooled them into thinking they were safe. That's more than wrong: it's immoral.

Flooding is the costliest and most common cause of property damage, which is why federal flood insurance should be affordable and accessible to all.

In more than 500 instances, from the Gulf of Alaska to Bar Harbor, Maine, FEMA has remapped waterfront properties from the highest-risk flood zone, saving the owners as much as 97 percent on the premiums they pay into the financially strained National Flood Insurance Program.

Flooding damage is not customary for New York, especially downstate.

Being in a floodplain is like sitting down in a bathtub.

A property in the 100-year floodplain has a 96 percent chance of being flooded in the next hundred years without global warming. The fact that several years go by without a flood does not change that probability.

Americans rightly asked, if this is the way our government responds to a natural disaster it knew about days in advance, how would it respond to a surprise terrorist attack? How would it respond to an earthquake?

Homeowners and business owners across the country agreed to pay premiums, communities agreed to adopt building codes to mitigate flood dangers, and the Federal Government agreed to provide insurance coverage to policyholders after a disaster.

You know, we lose more homes every year to flooding than we do any other event in America.

We owe it to the flood victims of New Orleans to give them truthful answers as to why this event took place and to assure our citizens that tragedies like this will never happen again.

There is no question that FEMA and the National Emergency Response System did not fail America the day that Katrina hit. They failed the day before and the days before that.

No two floods are alike.

The devastating Hurricane Katrina, which revealed to the entire world the great helplessness in dealing with the destruction caused by this hurricane, because of the tremendous attrition of the American army's resources in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the pandemonium of the crisis in New Orleans, somehow getting people on busses took priority over keeping them alive.

This was the most anticipated natural disaster in history.

Washington is stuck in an endless cycle of disaster response. The U. S. Government spends billions of dollars on disasters after they happen, but it pinches pennies when it comes to preparing for them. And both Federal and State policies create incentives for people to hold and rebuild in increasingly risky costal areas.

Having just one insurance provider for all flood risk in the entire country makes no sense.

I lived in Bandra East, on the 12th floor. There was a small earthquake; I could feel the building shaking. I was halfway down the stairs when I realised I'd forgotten my laptop, and all my scripts were on it. If I lost the laptop, I'd lose all my work. I ran back up to get it!

Like air pollution, flood risk is a threat that government should be protecting us against.

Flooding is the most urgent issue that Houstonians are facing.

However deep you dig a well it affords no refuge in the time of flood.

If the wind rises it can push us against the flood when it comes.