For one thing, his criticism indicated a bias toward the very structural approaches to flood protection that have helped exacerbate the problem in past floods. For another, it ignored the fact that Davenport's approach to the river has been more sensible than most. The city has no levees. Its residents have deliberately chosen to remain connected to the river, building shoreline parks and leaving open spaces where other cities might have built levees and offices. The result is that damage is minimal compared with places with dense concentrations of buildings that are overwhelmed when floods breach the protective levees, as happened up and down the river in 1993.
Nobody ever beats the river.
It is a lesson that the federal government and the commercial builders have yet to learn. Privacy Information Stay connected to the news that interests you with free e-mail alerts from The New York Times.