The very fact that we don't know how vulnerable we are to floods across this country ought to be worrisome, ... We need to find that out and then act to do something about it.

Communities around the country continue to be at risk.

In spite of 70 years of federal flood control efforts and nearly 40 years of federal flood insurance, the costs of flooding continue to rise and there is no federal policy to provide direction for future actions.

The half-life of the memory of a flood is very short. You can already hear it in Washington, D.C.: New Orleans where?

That's a lot of territory. Never has the damage been so great. The question is, are the people going to come back? I don't think anybody really knows.

It gives scant attention to environment and social costs of the kind we saw in the eyes of the displaced families