Did Houston's pro-growth policies make this disaster worse?

Hurricane Harvey hit Texas on August 25, 2017. It caused $180 billion in damage, making it the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history. To give you a sense of that number, the budget for the entire state government of Texas is about $109 billion per year.

The Houston Chronicle ran an extensive six-part story (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. in December on public policy decisions by federal, state and local officials before and during the hurricane. While nobody is blaming government for the hurricane, the Chronicle story claims that unwise policy decisions and missed opportunities had a lot to do with why the damage was so extensive.

Houston has always been a pro-business, pro-growth place, as we studied back in the first chapter of our book. Did Houston's pro-growth policies make this disaster worse?

Write our standard 2 - 5 page essay (this will probably need more than 2 pages...) explaining some of the public policy decisions - good and bad - that impacted the flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey. What should we do going forward, and how should we pay for it?

Submit in Word. Cite your sources.

Additional Resources

Here's the Chronicle series: http://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/hc-investigations/harvey/ (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

This article has a lot of statistics and links to other useful sources: https://www.thebalance.com/hurricane-harvey-facts-damage-costs-4150087 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

When we widened the Katy Freeway in the 1990's, we had a "once-in-a-lifetime" chance to build a huge conveyance culvert underneath it to move water from the reservoirs straight to the ship channel: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/harvey/2017/09/05/houston-grew-officials-ignored-lifetime-chance-spare-thousands-flooding (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

Federally subsidized National Flood Insurance, while well-intended, is part of the problem: https://www.forbes.com/sites/omribenshahar/2017/08/30/lessons-from-hurricane-harvey-federal-flood-insurance-is-the-problem-not-the-solution/#4aa054925013 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

Harris County Judge Ed Emmett has some ideas: https://spacecityweather.com/harris-county-judge-releases-15-point-plan-to-address-houston-flooding/ (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.