I would liked to see laws in place and enforced to prevent building in areas that are flood zones, or repeatedly flood. There would be some heavy political issues to overcome to do this.
Many homes flood repeatedly and emergency funding is used to replace them in many instances. This seems a waste of taxpayer dollars. 

FEMA dishes out no more than $30,000 hardly a rebuild budget. 

The problem with this flood is that so many - majority? - were not in the 100 year flood plan and/or had never flooded before. The city of Houston has a flood permitting process designed, on paper, to deal with this. 

I sort-of agree Texas lady, and they do. My friend Jamie flooded (not Kingwood) 4 times and in the flood of 94 (I believe) they did not let her build again on that property. Last year they tried to force the apartments on Hamblin to move. The problem they had was those are apartments that have been converted, in name only, to condominiums. Too many owners I understand was the problem. Too expensive to buy out. The past two years have been extreme. I don't have an answer, I just understand the problem. 

If you buy a house in the flood plane you have to buy flood insurance plus regular home insurance. If people choose to do that then shouldn't they have that right? Of course that does not address the fact that so many who flooded were not in the flood plane. Don't businesses have to buy flood insurances like homeowners do if in the 100 yr flood plane? I am so sad for all the apt dwellers who flooded too.I know renters insurance is not mandatory for renters and I bet they can't Gert flood insurance for their personal property even if thee wanted to..don't the landlords have to? What a mess any way you look at it.