The plain and simple facts

The floodplain belongs to the river. We can delineate it, map it, drain it, and dredge it. But we can no more do away with a floodplain than we can do away with gravity itself. Would a man sitting in a bathtub expect never to get wet?

We have altered the landscape to such a degree that predicting the severity of flooding from year to year is extremely difficult. Distant records are of little use; the land today does not resemble the land back then.

There will be a flood in the spring of 2011. But we are merely spectators, with a front row seat to one of Nature's most powerful Earth-shaping tools.