You sir, are the fool who, while deciding where to farm, chose...wait for it...the fucking flood plain of one of the largest rivers in north america...booohooo..guess you should have chosen some place a few miles outside of this historical flood plain, or not come crying to the rest of us who have some sense when you experience a flood...geez..

it's always been a known gamble. Grow great crops for years, then pay the piper when the floods come.

Remember that the great ancient civilizations originated in river valleys -- the Nile, Tigris, Euphrates, Indus, Yangtze -- for precisely this reason. Seasonal floods enrich the soil and replace nutrients lost to farming.

And prevented the seasonal flooding that replaced nutrients, instead relying on artificial fertilizers. Then, when massive flooding hits, the levees break and hit with a vengeance.

Sometimes I wonder if we really are all that much smarter than ancient cultures.

it's a great idea. I just don't want to hear the wailing when it floods, nor do I think the .gov should have to pay for it...you're right, it is a gamble. The people of those regions you mention were nomadic or migratory and they didn't build too many permanent structures in the plains, when the rains came they moved to higher ground.

Now building homes in these notorious flood plains, is just dumb. Yet every time one of the rivers come out of their banks we see the same people crying over their loss..calling for FEMA assistance, rebuilding because they didn't have insurance, and they didn't have insurance because no insurance company will take the risk without premiums equal to the value of the property every 5 years or so. Then crying for levies and seawalls and dams to reroute or constrict the river. I just don't get it.

I've heard this sentiment at some of the Corps of Engineers public meetings at various sites along the Missouri during and since the 2011 flood. Some people along the river have this ridiculous notion that the channel should stay fixed where it is, that the river should not meander at all, that there should be no floods ever, etc. You and I and everyone else here pay for hundreds of millions of dollars of levees to "protect" a few thousand acres of marginal farmland that still end up under water every few years, and then we pay tens of millions of dollars to repair those levees every time they are breached. Meanwhile, keeping those levees in place raises the flood stage for the city or town across the channel. This use of levees between the blufflines on the Missouri River is a ridiculous waste of money; we'd be better off paying these farmers the going rate for their sandy, floodprone land, removing the levees, and then using the acquired acres as green space during dry years and floodplain during wet years.