3. This is a flood disaster assignment. You are asked to select your hometown if it has experienced a flood or, if it has not, to select the city of your choice that has experienced a flood disaster.

Flood disasters are not new. Why has flood vulnerability been so long tolerated in the United States and Europe? Was flood vulnerability tolerated in your municipality of interest before it was flooded? Are local governments in flood-prone areas fundamentally responsible for their own protection, or are they conditioned to entrust higher-level governments with that authority? Levee construction and maintenance have been alleged to be weak, and some claim that incompetent jurisdictions have been left with responsibility for flood-works that are capable, if they fail, of devastating their own communities and communities outside their own jurisdictions.

What should be done about this issue?