The loss of an entire community can only be described as a heart-rending tragedy. Especially when it’s foreseeable and preventable.
Imagine how different things would be now if Snohomish County had a nanny government, instead of a laissez-faire building department, that hadn’t let those folks build homes on their property because the unstable slope above might come down on them someday.
Well, some folks don’t like government telling them what to do, so it’s easier for public officials to shrug and let people build houses wherever they want, then brave and selfless first responders go and dig them out.
Geologists tell us Mount Rainier is an active volcano. They’ve mapped the mudflow zones. And people built houses there. The Tacoma News Tribune wrote, “Despite a decade of warnings from experts that a disaster could happen, thousands more people have moved into the likely path of Mount Rainier’s next volcanic mudflow. … Traveling up to 50 mph with the consistency of wet cement, a mudflow could roar into the Puyallup Valley …. There is a one-in-seven chance Mount Rainier will trigger another large mudflow during an average person’s lifetime.” When it does, the loss of life will not be dozens, but hundreds or thousands.
http://wwwb.tribnet.com/projects/lahar/lahar.asp
AND Seattle has its own major fault.
How about a free market solution? Require sellers to post risk tags! Hell, you would not even require the tags … just make them available. What damn fool would by a house w/o seeing the tag?
Or we could have a “fair fee” tax. If you own a house in a risk area you get taxed for the costs the state will bear when your place burns down or falls in the lake!
Nah, this is America, land of Socialism For The Rich, so what we do instead is make working-class taxpayers subsidize flood insurance for rich people who build multi-million-dollar vacation houses on stilts on hurricane-prone beaches.