Flood-program fixes languish in Senate

Legislation intended to fix the nation’s troubled flood-insurance program remains stalled in the Senate, even as a dangerous storm barrels toward the southern Atlantic coast.

The program, administered through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is the primary source of flood insurance in the U.S., with about 5 million policyholders across the country. But it remains more than $20 billion in debt, and some experts say it must be overhauled in an era of powerful storms like Harvey, Irma and Maria, which all struck parts of the U.S. last year.

“They have not dealt with the gorilla in the room, which is proactively addressing these types of disasters for the future,” said Rob Moore, a senior

● policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Too much of the U.S.’ response to natural disaster is completely reactionary; we throw a bunch of money after it happens.”

The debate has taken on greater urgency in the 2018 storm season as Hurricane Florence gathers strength in the Atlantic Ocean. Florence has taken aim at a vast stretch of the U.S.’ eastern coast from South Carolina to Maryland. It is poised to become the strongest hurricane in almost 30 years to threaten the Carolinas, and it has already prompted widespread evacuations.

Instead of paying to rebuild, Moore said, Congress should direct FEMA to provide more assistance to relocate residents from areas that are vulnerable to flooding, fortify and elevate less-exposed properties to protect them from wind and water, and implement other mitigation efforts.

Congress spent $120 billion on disaster relief in the wake of hurricanes and

Bloomberg file photo Construction company owner Frank Jones talks on a cellphone next to debris from a house in Spring, Texas, that was flooded after Hurricane Harvey in September 2017. A bill to overhaul the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s flood insurance program has been stalled in Congress since November.