You can thank some of those lessons learned after Katrina and Rita. Don't ask my why, but in some parts of New Orleans (the city proper), home owners whose homes were lower in elevation than mine (my neighborhood is rated -3.5 ft) were not, repeat NOT, required to have flood insurance, and many did not. It was very difficult to listen to the poor-little-rich-girl who used to sit in the cube across from mine whine about having 6 ft of water in her house, but they didn't have flood insurance - and her husband is an economist (poor-little-rich-kid too). OK, I'm cranky this evening for some reason, so I'll stop before I put both feet in my mouth.

Anyway, thanks to lessons learned after the hurricanes of 2005, more areas are being assessed for potential flood hazard, and folks are now being required by their mortgage companies to have flood insurance.

Oh, and better for parks to flood than homes and businesses. Bad for park, but better for houses. And all that green space absorbs the water better than streets and driveways.