Troubled Waters: The National Flood Insurance Program in Historical Perspective

The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP)—an effort to provide governmentbacked insurance protection to Americans living in flood-prone areas—was championed by Lyndon B. Johnson and established by Congress through passage of the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968.3 Private flood insurers had retreated from the market following the great 1927 Mississippi River flood; and serious attempts to create a flood insurance program only began again in the 1950s, with actions by both the Truman and Eisenhower administrations that eventually stalled.4 The impetus to pass the NFIP finally came in reaction to the escalating costs of ad hoc post-disaster relief legislation, triggered initially by the Alaska earthquake of 1964, and followed by severe flooding and damage from Hurricane Betsy in 1965, America’s first billion dollar hurricane.5 The NFIP was implemented in the midst of a remarkable population shift to hurricane-vulnerable states and coastal counties. For example, since 1950 Florida’s astounding 579% growth rate was the highest in the nation, raising it from 20th to 4th in population. Texas grew at a rate of 226%, moving its population rank to second in the nation. Other hurricane hazard states like Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, New Hampshire, and Virginia were among the fastest states growing in the nation.6 As of 2010, 39% of Americans live in coastal shoreline counties, a remarkable increase of almost 40% since 1970—with population densities six times greater in shoreline counties than inland counties.7 While the concentration of population in coastal regions has created wealth, it has also placed vastly more people and more property in previously undeveloped floodplains and hurricane zones, and into harm’s way. This trend in development is a