Yeah, since Katrina we've had major levee work either happening or being fought over. (Mostly the latter -- it's levee safety versus environmental/ecosystem concerns -- I believe the issue is that the feds don't think you need both but the state would like to protect the ecosystems along the rivers.)

There was a levee break up in Nevada but as far as I know everything is fine down here with only local flooding. My particular area is pretty safe ... we are right by the American River, but floods there are controlled by the Folsom Dam, so there would have to be a really catastrophic failure to affect us, and we would have some warning. (Recent federal redistricting actually resulted in us not being required to carry flood insurance at all even though we are spitting distance from the river, although of course we still do carry it.)

But before the dam our house was in the middle of a flood plain. We have a "highwater bungalow" -- it's a 1914 Craftsman bungalow with a full-story above-ground basement that was designed to flood in the winter.