The Brooks home will never be like it was before the 2021 floods in British Columbia. Two years ago, extreme rain filled the Similkameen and Tulameen rivers. Water burst over the banks through a dike and flooded siblings Dian and Danie’s property just outside of Princeton. The two rushed to save their animals and waited for two days in the second level of their home before a rescue boat came.

As Dian watched their homemade furniture bob in the deluge, she remembers thinking, “There goes our house. There goes everything that we have worked for our lives. We have just lost everything.” With help from volunteers, some funding from government and insurance they have since repaired some of the damage and are back inside.

      • @[email protected]
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        511 months ago

        I think that’s a bit different, I agree that tornado alley is a dangerous place to live but it’s gigantic… it’s similar to saying that nobody should live in California due to earthquakes. There were some ancient people that used to sink flood stones into their river banks - if a flood submerged a flood stone you’d make another one at the new high water mark.

        People should just stop building houses right up against waterways.

        • @[email protected]
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          311 months ago

          Yeah, the do not build beyond this monuments. For climate change we probably need some civil engineering and meteorologist to work together and set out boundaries for new build area and deprecate potential bad spots. Those spot will fall in value so quickly and no insurance company will insure those.

          • @[email protected]
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            211 months ago

            Then what?

            People just moving ranchers (splits, here) around do not address the problem, which is simply there is no cheap land. That which isn’t required for farming is just too expensive to have a single family dwelling on.

            • @[email protected]
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              11 months ago

              There is immensely cheap land available in remote areas. But if you’re talking about land near stuff like work… then the real problem is zoning laws and dumb as rocks urban planning.

              It’s pretty obvious that every household having 2-3 cars is simply unsustainable.

  • Tar_Alcaran
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    411 months ago

    This is hardly an unsolvable problem. But it IS expensive. The Netherlands has 17 million people and almost all of them live in a floodplane or literally under sea level.

    You fix this by pouring billions of dollars into flood control. Build dykes, retention areas, meandering rivers and normalized deltas. It’s expensive and a lot of work, and people will need to move, or drown. It’s as simple as that.