The recent floods in the Horseshoe Bend area of Parker County, upstream of Lake Granbury are nothing new. That area floods all the time, except during drought years:
http://www.star-tele...le81098412.html
Why have people been allowed to develop such low-lying areas into residential properties, and why do people buy such lots?
Certainly a lot of the problem stems from a lack of systematic planning in areas outside of urban centers. Most likely, if a developer approached Fort Worth or Dallas, or even Haltom City today and applied to build 600 homes in a floodplain the permit would be denied based on the potential for flooding. I doubt seriously if any such process is in place in rural counties across Texas where laissez-faire development (by contractors not even required by the state to be licensed) is the norm. County government is for the most part poorly equipped, with limited resources available at the local level to address these sorts of issues. Lots of expert advice is available from statewide agencies but it is just that, advice. There is little to no coercive power to curb ignorant or unscrupulous developers from making bad decisions that carry down to unpleasant consequences for consumers who purchase in the suspect areas, not to mention people already living downstream. I suppose one analogy is the tired old one regarding homes built adjacent to an airport (Grapevine, Irving) whose owners subsequently gripe about planes flying over their homes. If you build or buy houses in a floodplain you have to expect, well..., floods.
Proper use of these areas would include parkland or agricultural, except that the widespread high reliance on chemical fertilizers or mass-production cattle feces from dairies would pose a pollution risk downstream. "Organic" farming or ranching (however you choose to define that term) might be a good choice as long as the cattle have a place to exit when the river rises. The current developments are not served by a sanitary sewer system so when the water level rises above the drains there is the potential for serious pollution of the water downstream. That in itself should be sufficient reason for the state to declare some sort of interest is controlling this type of development. Some sort of public (or conservancy) owned buffer between the river and residential development or intensive agriculture would be, in my opinion, a best-use for this sort of land. A mix of restored prairie and cross-timber woodland with recreational uses (camping, hiking, fishing, etc.) in permitted areas would be relatively unaffected when the river rises.
So what to do with the development that is already in place in these flood-prone areas? If the owners had proper flood insurance they are free to decide whether to rebuild or sell-out. Those who didn't are, well..., up the proverbial creek. Federal flood insurance underwritten by FEMA is available for people living in these areas, but it seems that after two or three payouts over a ten-year period there would be some process in place to deny coverage due to increased knowledge of the likelihood of future events. This sort of insurance is not cheap, but it actually encourages irresponsible behavior among those who can afford it. Some effort should be made to empower a private Land Trust to begin accumulating floodplain property that has proved dangerous to inhabit. There are existing organizations like Friends of the Brazos, Brazos River Conservation Coalition, Texas Agricultural Land Trust, Native Prairies Conservancy of Texas, The Nature Conservancy, who could provide input and support for an organized effort to return flood prone lands to a natural state that would complement the river system and take people out of periodic harms-way.
