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A building owner will naturally want to measure an expenditure of money for flood proofing against the protection he receives. For this purpose he should make it a point to include a benefit-cost anal- ysis as part of his inquiry. This involves determing the dollar extent of the flood hazard by first calcu- lating the probability of floods of various levels at the site and then estimating the damage to the particul3.r building from those levels of flooding. The result is an estimate of dollar loss from flooding which is con- sidered as the flood proofing benefit--that is, the amount saved by flood proofing to various levels of protection. This benefit is then matched against the cost of flood proofing on an average annual basis to produce a benefit-cost ratio. A fuller evaluation of Figure 5. -Engaging professionals flood proofing is presented in a previous report en- to assist in a flood proofing pro- titled Flood Proofi~: An Element in a Flood Dam- gram. age Reduction Program. 1 Professional hydrological advice, from such agencies as the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers or the Tennessee Valley Authority, is available in calculating the general flood hazard at a site. Estimating the probable damage from various flood levels is usually done best by the building owner himself, in consultation with a professional engineer or architect. The same professional can then estimate the cost of flood proofing over a pre- scribed time period. The decision to flood proof, or not, rests finally with the building or property owner. A decision against altering the building, for whatever reason, need not necessarily mean a total discard of all flood proofing techniques. A plan of action as simple as the water proofing of machinery, the disconnection or raising of electrical circuits, etc., or a plan for the orderly removal of machines or merchandise, may be the only logical recourse in some circumstances; but even these measures will reduce flood losses, sometimes sub- stantially. Another approach would be to permanently reorganize the use of space in the building. Flood proofing measures that are temporary safeguards require advance preparation, as do more complicated programs, and plans should be developed for their implementa- tion. Any step which is carried out primarily to reduce the prObability of damage is an in- gredient in a flood proofing program. ~, ii~J' '".'f',/ "P .;'" '1\ ". IU " , , . IJOhn R. Sheaffer, Flood Proofin : An Element in a Flood Dama ~r~, Department of Geogra y, esearc per OlverSl Y 0 Y e Author, 1960), pp. 27- 2. e Reduction Pro- cago eago: 5