Latest Midwest floods expose lessons unlearned

USA TODAY, July, 2008

The floods that swallowed towns and farms, claimed at least 24 lives, drove 38,000 people from their homes and left billions of dollars in damage across the Midwest cannot be written off solely as an act of nature. The four weeks of major flooding that began in June are just as much a man-made disaster, one in the making for decades.

Fifteen years ago, after the Midwest was struck by devastating floods, a White House commission and scores of independent engineers, scientists and environmentalists urged a turnaround in the nation's failed flood policies. But the lessons of the 1993 floods receded as quickly as the waters, and the nation was left with an outdated mindset that seeks to tame rivers through engineering and dangerous policies that lure development to...