Ascension Parish among fastest-growing floodplain areas in US

Though everyone knows it’s incredibly risky to build on flood-prone land, people continue to flock to areas in the 100-year floodplain designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Take Ascension Parish, for example, where the population has grown 51% since the year 2000, Governing reports.
Referred to as a “flood-prone development hotspot,” Ascension Parish is among the fastest-growing areas in the 100-year floodplain, tying for the No. 16 spot with Riverside County, California, and Kane County, Illinois.
Increased development could be traced back to federal regulations that do little to discourage construction in flood-prone areas, professionals argue. Larry Larson, director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers, sees it as a system of perverse incentives.
Case in point: Regardless of whether states take any steps to discourage risky developments, they still receive generous disaster relief assistance when devastation occurs. The federal government typically pays for about three-quarters of disaster assistance and over 90% after the most destructive storms.  
And just 10 days before Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas last year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order nullifying an Obama-era rule that required federal agencies to build public infrastructure at higher elevations and factor in climate science when constructing in floodplains. Moreover, a move by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to replace the Waters of the United States rule is expected to increase development of wetland areas.
“If you continue to allow development in a floodplain, you can have the strongest stormwater standards,” says Stephen Julka, floodplain manager for Charleston, South Carolina, “but even with the strictest standards, you’re still putting people in a floodplain.”
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