WSPA (in Spartanburg, S.C.) produced a terrific story about outdated government flood maps. You should look into this. As communities have changed over the last 20 years, our flood mapping has not kept up. Blacktop, concrete, and construction change the way water runs off and where it goes.
But as you will see in the story that Spencer Culp sent to me, the maps that we all rely on to tell us our flood vulnerability are 20 years old. In a lot of places, that is old enough to be outdated.
In filing cabinets at the Department of Natural Resources sit the flood maps that can tell you whether your home is in a flood plain. But the maps are so out-of-date that they might not be accurate enough to tell you anyway, and they're so lacking in detail that you probably couldn't find your house to begin with.
Looking at a Spartanburg County map, Lisa Jones says, "These maps were produced in 1984." She's the coordinator for the state's flood mitigation program.
The maps are so old because Congress, until 2003, hadn't appropriated any money to produce flood maps. They've traditionally been paid for out of flood insurance premiums.
Now, Congress is giving the states money to update their maps. But it will be enough to do only about half of what's needed.
Outdated flood maps can cause problems for homeowners. Jones says, "Maps that are out-of-date cause people to have a false sense of security. They believe that, since the flood map doesn't show their property being located in the flood plain, even though the flood map was produced in 1979, that there's no flood hazard that they should be paying attention to."
FEMA mentions the problem on its website:
A number of organizations, representing state and local officials, the nation's realtors, home builders and surveyors, and those with a stake in floodplain management, development review, disaster mitigation, emergency response, land-use planning, and environmental protection have formed a coalition to support funding of FEMA's Map Modernization efforts.
These organizations believe that accurate and useable floodplain maps are the foundation of good local planning and natural disaster mitigation. However, many of the nation's flood maps are as much as 30 years old ... a full third of the inventory is over 15 years old. Many of these maps do not reflect today's development and as a result do not show changes in flood hazards. Reliance on these outdated flood maps in making decisions about new development harms commercial and residential property owners and the taxpayers who ultimately pay for flooding damages.
An aggressive program to update, modernize, and maintain the inventory of flood maps is essential. FEMA's Map Modernization Program has laid the framework for this effort. However, without adequate funding, progress has been slow.
The Draft E-Mail
A fair number of Al's Morning Meeting readers (about six of you) have sent me e-mails about "pending legislation that would reinstate the draft."
Here is one of many such sites.
I thought we might as well address that issue, since you are probably getting those e-mails from readers, too.
The legislation the writers are referring to was introduced in January 2003. The bills have not moved and are essentially dead. (This link will take you right to the text of the bill.)
While the e-mails are intended to suggest that President Bush, if re-elected, will reinstate the draft, the e-mails do not point out that most of the sponsors of the draft bill are Democrats.
Newsweek's Jonathan Alter says the e-mails have been circulating around college campuses.
Democrat Charlie Rangel, who opposed the Iraq War, introduced the legislation last year. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said then that a draft is not necessary.
Recently, John Kerry has picked up the theme, implying that President Bush might reinstate the draft.
The Washington Times quotes Kerry:
"If George Bush were to be re-elected -- given the way that he has gone about this war, and given the avoidance of responsibility in North Korea, Iran, and other places -- it is possible," he said. "I can't tell you."
"I will tell you this: I will not reinstate the draft," the Massachusetts Democrat said in response to a question from a member of the audience of a town-hall meeting here (in West Palm Beach, Florida).
The Times story went on:
Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican and member of the Armed Services Committee, called the draft possibility an "urban legend" and called the statements "desperate and harmful to our troops."
"While the president is working with allies and calling on the United Nations to help secure a democratic future in Iraq and the Middle East, Senator Kerry is busy spreading scare tactics and defeatism," Mr. Cornyn said. "Sadly, his only plan seems to be fear, urban legends, and conspiracy theories."
After saying he would not reinstate the draft, Mr. Kerry quickly modified his stance to leave open that possibility if "the United States of America faced the kind of global attack or conflagration where everybody in America understood through an open democratic process we needed to defend this nation."
Fake Sweepstakes Sweeping Across Nation
Federal investigators say fraudulent sweepstakes entries have reached near epidemic proportions, particularly among the elderly.
Here is a story from MSNBC.
Do Debates Matter?
I watched Bill Moyers' NOW program (on PBS) last week and learned a lot about how presidential debates, which once were organized by groups like the League of Women Voters, are now organized by something called the Commission on Presidential Debates.
NOW has posted tons of information that allows you to explore the history of presidential debates and to discover how the Commission on Presidential Debates works. For the first time, you can actually read the contract called the "Memorandum of Understanding" on which the debates are based.
Moyers says that fewer people are watching the debates.
In 1960, over 66 million people watched the first televised debate out of a total population of 178 million. Even in 1980, the numbers were high, with over 80 million watching the debate between Reagan and Carter. But since then even as the population has swelled to over 294 million, the numbers have slipped, with only 46.6 million watching the first debate in 2000, and nearly ten million less watching the second and third debates ...
For the first time in 16 years, the contract drafted by the Republican and Democratic campaigns -- the 2004 Memorandum of Understanding -- has been made public. Now, the general public and the media can hold the candidates accountable for the debates they have designed. Also, for the first time in 12 years, there will be more than just one moderator asking the questions. The candidates have accepted four different moderators for the four debates (three presidential, one vice-presidential). Each of the moderators was proposed by The Commission on Presidential Debates
Debate Watching Tips
Long-time political campaign researcher Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center and author of "Everything You Think You Know About Politics ... And Why You're Wrong" offers some tips for smart campaign watching. Jamieson and other campaign watchers fear that Americans feel there is nothing new to be learned from debates. However, most studies show that viewers' knowledge of a candidate and his or her issue platform improves after watching a debate.
Jamieson also suggests that viewers be wary of the poll results released by the networks immediately after the debate ends. Instead of reflecting the opinions of everyone who watched the debates, the results come from samples weighted to reflect the predebate standings in the polls. Jamieson notes that since watching long events like debates tends to reinforce existing dispositions, what this really means is that whoever is ahead in the polls before the debate is likely to come out the winner in the post-debate poll as well.
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Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts, and other materials from a variety of websites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed, and a link will be provided, whenever possible.
