"Why Did Houston Pave Over Their Floodplains?"

"In these acute crises, we see inspiring stories over and over: Communities come together. People risk their lives to save their neighbors as well as strangers. It is heartwarming. It reinforces everything that we want to believe about ourselves as Americans, as Texans, as Floridians, as Louisianans.
"But examining why these moments of heroism become necessary tells a darker story about America. People don’t just find themselves in places vulnerable to flooding. They are pushed there by racial injustice, economic inequality, and short-term, profit-driven development practices. The long-term decay of the nation’s infrastructure is a direct result of policy decisions that politicians and communities make time and again. The Gulf Coast is an extreme example of this, a laboratory for what happens when you combine lax planning policies, aging flood-control mechanisms, and a geography that channels storms from the warm (and warming) waters of the Gulf into the cities that line it."

Alexis C. Madrigal at The Atlantic interviews Cindy Ermus about her new book Environmental Disaster in the Gulf South.

The editors of The Washington Post take Texas public officials to task.

Steve Russell at Newsweek writes that "Houston Is Drowning--In Its Freedom From Regulations."

And Thom Patterson at CNN explains "How Houston's layout may have made its flooding worse."