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DAMAGES PREVENTED Management and structural practices prevented damages from being worse than dley were. These practices involved nonstructural solutions, upland conservation treatment, and major flood control projects. Nonstructural Flood Protection The term "nonstructural measures" is used to describe techniques that "modify susceptibility to flooding (such as regulation, floodplain acquisition, and floodproofing techniques)."" A nonstructural approach to flood damage prevention was effective in the town of Prairie Du Chein, Wisconsin where die flood was a 40- to 50- year evelll. Prairie du Chein was the site of the first relocation project undertaken by die USACE and carried out between 1978 and 1984. A measure of the project's success was reported by the Red Cross. Used to responding to floods in Prairie Du Chein, Red Cross workers came to town but left within two weeks because no one needed their help." Relocation had freed citizens of anxiety about the risk of flood damage to their homes and businesses. Nonstructuralland management applications such as the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge and the Upper Mississippi River Wildlife and Fish Refuge provided for storage 20 TIlE FLOOD OF 1993 and conveyance of a portion of the 1993 floodwaters within the floodplains of the lower Minnesota and upper Mississippi River valleys. Refuges, parklands, greenways, and agriculture are examples of appropriate floodplain uses that reduce flood damages by minimizing the number of structures at risk. The National Flood Insurance Program. The NFIP has not encouraged floodplain development in the Midwest and, in comhination with state and local floodplain managment programs, appears to have discouraged it. The NFIP has discotJraged floodplain development by (I) increasing awareness of flooding by identifying and mapping the flood hazard, (2) internalizing the cost of floodplain occupancy, making development in the floodplain more costly (Le., added cost of protecting buildings from flooding and the added cost of the NFlP flood insurance premium), and (3) requiring additional permitting and engineering studies that developers and individuals may choose to avoid. The Review Committee met with a number of communities in the Midwest, large and small, that actively discourage development in their floodplains even if permitted by federal or state regulations. This " "steering" of development to flood-free locations has .' ;: deterred new floodplain development in these communities. Approximately 93 percent of the properties which are located in the 100-year floodplain in the flooded area and are currently insured by the NF/P were constructed before the issuance of a Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM) for the community and conversion ofthe~ community-to the Regular Program of the NF/P," I.e., between December 31, 1974 and the early to mid- 1980's. Floodplain management regulations appear to have prevented or reduced damages to new construction (post-FIRM construction). These buildings sustained proportionally fewer losses than older buildings even though the flood elevations exceeded the 100-year design standard in many tocations. These new buildings comprise 6.4 percent of the insured floodplain buildings in the declared counties, but account for only 3,2 percent of the losses.47 , " -~ (: " i: -., i ~-