Americans are not generally
regarded as fatalistic. Christianity, the prevalent religion in
America, teaches that individuals possess free will and are
therefore responsible for their actions. The nation was founded and
shaped by immigrants intent on building new lives in which they
— not oppressive governments, intolerant clerics or class
distinctions — would determine their fates.
But
every time the earth quakes, a hill slides, a river floods or a
forest burns — events that occur with dismaying frequency in
the West — America turns into a nation of passive fatalists.
“When it’s my time to go, it’s my time to
go,” a resident of the mud-buried Southern California town of La
Conchita recently told a local reporter, summing up the sentiments
of many in a state where natural hazards seem to lurk at every
hand.
In the wake of the Jan. 10 landslide that killed 10
people and demolished 13 homes in the coastal hamlet of La
Conchita, attention has been focused on a pair of related
questions: Should residents whose homes escaped damage be allowed
to reoccupy them? And if so, what steps should government take to
protect them?
Similar questions arise in the wake of
every fresh calamity involving natural forces. What degree of
protection do public agencies owe farms and homes in floodplains?
Should the lives of firefighters be placed at risk to protect
vacation homes built in the midst or on the edge of flammable
forests? Should property owners be allowed to rebuild after
predictable disasters claim their homes?
In the case of
La Conchita — and by extension, most places where natural
forces pose considerable risk — the answers are: Let people
live where they like, but take no extraordinary steps to protect
them.
Although it is true that there is no such thing as
a “risk-free” place to build homes, not all places are equally
risky. It is preposterous to use the ubiquity of improbable risk as
an excuse to deliberately build homes in places where the risk is
obvious and high. Nevertheless, the cherished values of personal
freedom and private property rights in the United States suggest a
limited role for government in determining where and how people
choose to live.
If people wish to occupy places where
mud, fire, water or earthquakes periodically try to kill them, it
is their right to do so, in the same way that it is their right to
risk death or injury climbing mountains, surfing monster waves, or
challenging treacherous whitewater in tiny plastic boats.
But there is a useful distinction to be made between allowing
people to assume risk, and encouraging risky behavior by shifting
nearly the entire cost of bad decisions from the individual to the
general public.
If the residents of La Conchita (or other
similarly threatened communities) want the hillside that threatens
their town to be rendered safe by construction of a costly
retaining wall, they should build it themselves. If they cannot
afford to do so, then they cannot afford the true cost of living in
that place. As there is no general public benefit to be gained by
protecting their property, society is under no obligation to reduce
their building costs by constructing protective structures at
public expense.
The same goes for developers who wish to
build homes in flood zones: If installing an expensive
flood-protection system (and posting an insurance bond big enough
to cover all potential damage should those precautions fail) makes
the homes in that development too expensive to buy, then the
project fails the most elemental test of the free market. That this
test often is fudged by builders and shortsighted regulators does
not make it inappropriate.
It is proper for a
compassionate society to subsidize limited emergency support for
all who suffer harm — accident victims, hypothermic hikers,
beachgoers dragged under by rip currents — even when those
injuries stem from errors in judgment.
But a distinction
is possible between events of the moment and those that result from
deliberate choices. Deciding where to build is not something that
is determined by accident. It is rare for a genuinely unknown
natural hazard to arise suddenly, and although the true potential
severity of a known threat may be difficult to determine with
precision, it is not difficult to estimate whether a danger exists.
It is one thing for a society to tolerate faulty judgment
by some of its members. It is another to encourage poor choices by
forcing the prudent to subsidize the reckless.
John Krist is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a
service of High Country News (hcn.org). He is a
senior reporter and columnist for the Ventura County
Star in California.
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