From Joseph Pereira@1:103/705 to All on Friday, August 28, 2026 06:36:47
Not so long ago, 119 people lost their lives in Kerr County, Texas, when a river burst its banks.
119 deaths. A significant portion of the victims lived in homes that had been rebuilt or renovated after a previous flood.
Why do people learn so little from this?
They live in a place where the water comes frequently. The river has no choice. People do.
The government in Texas puts few obstacles in people's way of rebuilding their homes in exactly the same spot after a flood.
Freedom equals happiness?
But that happiness is short-lived when it strikes again.
The government, led by a Republican governor, is also doing little to actually hold back the water. Just like preventing people from building in such places, that is apparently a hopeless task politically.
So the rules do not change.
Why not? Because new rules are unpopular. And if something is unpopular, it can diminish your chances of re-election.
The consequence is that people keep making the same mistakes over and over again.
The only problem is that circumstances are changing. Due to climate change, heavy rainfall events and floods are becoming an increasingly greater risk in many areas.
It then becomes increasingly irresponsible to rebuild in the same vulnerable spots.
Yet, that is what happens.
It is these kinds of events and political choices that make it clear to me that the US is falling further and further behind in certain areas. People do not want to learn and are not adapting sufficiently. They prefer to keep repeating the same mistakes.
That is also an economic problem.
After all, what good is a house that you have to fix up again and again and that might no longer be insurable at all?
If your house is destroyed by water time and again, that is not just a personal tragedy. It also becomes an economic problem.
The bill eventually ends up somewhere: with the homeowner, the insurer, or the taxpayer. And as long as no one is willing to adjust the rules, people will continue building in the same vulnerable spots.
The river is not changing course because we refuse to learn from our mistakes.