Water Talk
Water Talk is a national podcast about all things Water hosted by Drs. Mallika Nocco (University of Wisconsin–Madison Extension), Faith Kearns (Arizona State University), and Sam Sandoval (University of California, Davis; University of California Agriculture & Natural Resources)
Water Talk
Ep 73: Reimagining Flood Risk and Insurance
A conversation with Dr. Kathleen Schaefer about flood risk and new approaches for community-based flood insurance. Released October 10, 2025.
Welcome to Water Talk. We are talking about flooding and flood insurance today, and we are ready to do a little bit of a primer. So, Sam, tell us just a little bit about our guest.
Samuel Sandoval Solis:Yeah, no, I was thinking of Kathy Schaeffer because basically she approaches a topic that we haven't talked about much in the podcast, floods, and in this case flood insurance. I don't think anyone is super happy to go to an insurer. But it is one of those things that as you keep thinking of what are the things that we should do, it's flood insurance. Kathy approaches flood insurance from a community based. And to me that was very refreshing. She did actionable science. It was uh it occurs in Ileton, California. So on in a small community. So I I think that was that was my my uh thinking for for uh asking Kathy uh to be on the on the podcast.
Mallika Nocco:Yeah, she was super interesting. A couple of just terms that come up is we talked about the national flood insurance program. So that's managed by FEMA from their website. It is delivered to the public by a network of more than 47 insurance companies, as well as directly. And they provide flood insurance to property owners, renters, and businesses. And it's available to anyone living in one of the 22,600 participating NFIP communities. The other thing that we talk a lot about that we're both excited that Sam just mentioned is community flood insurance. And for those who might not know, I just didn't know what community flood insurance was. It's that it's a single policy and it's purchased by a local government or like a governmental body. So Kathy talks about these geological hazard abatement districts. So that's kind of an example of a quasi-governmental body. So it'd be purchased by you know the local government or a quasi-governmental body, and that provides coverage to a large group of properties.
Samuel Sandoval Solis:And and I think for the national context, uh, these are special districts. So she talks the the case of California, but any special district that is related in any part of the United States related with hazard can be used or in theory can be used for this specific.
Mallika Nocco:Right, right. Exactly. And I know on Watertop we've talked a lot about like groundwater districts and irrigation districts and these different kinds of districts that can form for uh you know a sole community kind of based management purpose. And that looks different in every state. Some of the other things we talk very casually, um, like old people, about a different many different hurricanes that have happened in our lifetime. But for the younger folks, um, just mentioning, you know, Hurricane Katrina happened in August of 2005, and it really caused a lot of damage in the city of New Orleans. Hurricane Sandy happened in October of 2012, and it really caused a lot of damage in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States.
Samuel Sandoval Solis:So, without further ado, let's talk with Kathy Schaefer. Bienvenidos a Water Talk. In today's episode, we are talking about floods, flood policies, and most importantly, flood insurance with Dr. Kathleen Schaefer. She's an alumni of UC Davis. Kathy earned her PhD in civil and environmental engineering in December 2024. Her research focuses on ways to reduce the financial protection gap related to floods and new approaches to managing flood risk. Kathleen has a vast professional experience. She served as the regional engineer for FEMA Region 9, where she oversaw the National Flood Insurance Program MAP Production for Northern and Central California. She's a registered professional engineer, a PE, a certified floodplain manager, CFM, and is the recipient of the Flood Plain Management Association, Hog Owen Meritorious Achievement Award. We are very excited to have you here, Kathy. Bienvenida Water Talk.
Mallika Nocco:Thank you so much. It's my pleasure. All right, Kathy. Uh so we are just gonna have a little bit of fun here and do a quick fire. So just answer whatever comes to mind that you prefer. Okay. Ocean or lake? Ocean. Sparkling or still? Sparkling. Rain or snow? Rain. Salty or fresh? Oh, salty. Hot or cold? Hot. Bath or shower. Shower. And finally, what is your favorite water body?
Kathleen Schaefer:My favorite water body? Oh, it's definitely the Pacific Ocean.
Mallika Nocco:Oh, that's wonderful.
Kathleen Schaefer:Being from Northern California, it's there's nothing like being able to go out to the ocean, go out to Point Reyes and see the ocean. Yeah.
Mallika Nocco:Yes, it is gorgeous out there.
Samuel Sandoval Solis:Yeah, and in my case, the same the ocean is one of my favorite water bodies. So, Kathy, we are really excited to have you here in Water Talk. And as we have a broader audience, we are thinking, if you can share with us what was a pivotal moment that led you on your professional path.
Kathleen Schaefer:Yes, I can tell you the exact moment. It was at 10:30 a.m., New Year's Eve Day 2005. I was standing behind my husband who was knocking on the door of Miss Mills' apartment. Miss Mills was a 70-ish chain-smoking retired army nurse with hoarding tendencies. She opened the door, she was in her stocking feet wearing a 1960s house dress. She was smoking probably the 10th cigarette of the morning. And my husband and I were trying to convince her that we and the small army of people behind us needed to come in to her apartment to start cleaning up after the flood. She had stacks of national geographics from the last 20, 30 years floating around.
Mallika Nocco:And this is wild. Hold on a second. So is she your neighbor? And what's okay? Who how do you know this person?
Kathleen Schaefer:So my husband managed the family properties, and she was a tenant in the properties that flooded. Okay. And she had been in the apartment for 20 years. Her home was flooded. She was ankle deep in flood water at the time. She was just not functioning at all. Yet we had to, you know, go in and start cleaning out and getting everything removed so that mold didn't start and then we could start putting her house back together. And seeing how she was not able to function and seeing what it took to put her, you know, to get her going back is really part of what has always been my touchstone. The fact that the National Flood Insurance Program and the Corps of Engineers never ever consider the human factors, the people, you know, what happens after the disaster. How do we deal with it? So that's my touchstone. And that is what has driven me in my entire uh career then with FEMA.
Samuel Sandoval Solis:Yeah, thank you. Thank you for sharing that, Kathy. And I mean, bringing this personnel, like I mean, related to flood and all what happened in it. I mean, in the end, we're here we're really talking about people, people's property, not only the this kind of extreme and yet very risk events. You know, before actually diving into the floods and flood insurance, I would like to ask if you can share with us and with our audience about the history of the National Flood Insurance Program. So I really want to know like what happened and how we got here. If you can share that with us.
Kathleen Schaefer:So that that actually turned out to be one of the most interesting parts of my research. When I worked for FEMA, it was not uncommon for me when I gave presentations to make the statement that the reason we have the FEMA the way it is today is because the private sector got out of the flood insurance business. And it turns out that that is not, it's a twisted form of the truth. The real truth is that, yes, the private sector got out of the flood insurance business in 1927. But after the great Midwestern floods, um, Harry Truman, who was president, really wanted to have an insurance program. He saw what happened to his constituents. And so he initiated some research into is a flood insurance program viable? And what they found was that a public-private partnership would be viable. And so that was what was proposed in 1966. But then in there was some political reasons and some political back and forth, and it got passed, but it didn't get funded and implemented. But then in 1968, they they did another shot at it, and this time they included they divided the national food insurance program into two pieces. They had a what's called a Part A and a Part B. The Part A was the public-private partnership with a backstop from the federal government, and then they had because they didn't know if it would work and there was some uncertainty and there was some political pushback, then they had a Part B, which is the fully governmental program that we see today. So they implemented Part A, and for the first 10 years, it was very successful. There were 200 private insurance companies that were part of an insurance pool, and it was it was working. The problem was that the federal government wasn't living up to its end of the bargain. The federal government was supposed to augment some of the funding so that it could be offered to low-income households. And then what happened was about 10 years into the program, the private sector said, wait a minute, this isn't working. You're not living up to your end of the bargain, we're not going to do this anymore. And that then kicked in the idea of part B. The interesting story that's never told is that it was right at that time that the big data company EDS, which was run by Ross Perot, which those of us who are old may remember Ross Perot, they had just signed a major big data contract with Health and Human Services to manage the Social Security Administration. And so they said, Well, you know, this is just a big data problem. We can fix this, we can do this. So they submitted a proposal. When they submitted the proposal, the private firm said, wait, wait, wait, we really do want to participate. We want to we want to be part of this. It just isn't working for us in its present form. So they submitted a proposal. So the they had two proposals, a part A, one that was a public private partnership and one that was a fully governmental run. They didn't know what to do. They were apples to oranges, so they wrestled back and forth about which one to accept. They went to the government accounting uh GAO to say which one should we accept. GAO said, I don't know, it's apples to oranges, but this EDS one looks like it might be a couple million dollars less expensive. So let's go with that one. So they did, and that's how we have the NFIP that we have today. But the interesting thing that gets lost in the whole conversation is that before we went to the wholly governmental program, the public-private partnership was something like $20 million to the good. And like three or four years after that we went to the government program, it was $200 million in the hole. And it has sort of been in the hole ever since. So there's a whole bunch of things that have happened in the intervening time. Every time we have a major flood, there becomes changes to the program, and that has sort of led us to this sort of cobbled together system that we have that is still fundamentally the way that it's managed, the way that it's run, is fundamentally driven by regulations that were enacted in 1968. And you know, in many respects, a lot of the things have changed over time, but in many respects, a lot of them have not.
Samuel Sandoval Solis:And Kathy, also if you can elaborate the part of the low income, because basically this is something that we are now have to deal with, but where low-income communities were located, it really is directly related to flood and flood insurance. So that will be one if you can help us out with that. And the second if something on the national flood insurance program changed after Katrina, Sandy, and all of the events that we have.
Kathleen Schaefer:Yes, yes. So the the net result of that is that if you wanted to design a program that that disenfranchises people of color, that takes money from low-income households in the Central Valley, and that makes sure that people never ever recover from the disaster, you would be hard pressed to find a more effective or efficient program than the National Flood Insurance Program.
Mallika Nocco:Oh no!
Samuel Sandoval Solis:But it is good as we're kind of doing this uh background, how we got there. What about the Katrina or Sandy or the recent? Have they changed any of the national flood insurance?
Kathleen Schaefer:Some of it has. After Hurricane Sandy, there was some changes. The biggest change came with the Bigger Waters Act that really changed the fact that the rates had to be actually fair. And then the second biggest change has been risk rating 2.0, which is changing the way that the insurance is priced. So in the past, there were all these really kind of convoluted pricing arrangements. You know, if it was sort of pre-flood insurance rate map, post-flood insurance rate map, newly flood insurance rate map, you know, and risk rating 2.0 did away with all of that and aligns it more with the way that the private sector does it. So surprisingly, today, the FEMA flood insurance rate maps are only used in in flood insurance pricing, they're only used to determine whether flood insurance is required or not. Once that determination is made, then the map is thrown away, and a uh catastrophe model or a kind of a conglomeration of catastrophe models are used then to price the risk. So you have this disconnect, you can have a disconnect between what is the true risk or what is the risk that the catastrophe models think, and what is the risk that the 1980 era FEMA map says exists.
Mallika Nocco:Are there folks in FEMA who are responsible for developing those models? Where are those models coming from?
Kathleen Schaefer:No, those models are coming predominantly from the private sectors. Yeah, if they purchase a uh series of models, I think there's four models that they purchased from private vendors, and they kind of glue them together in some form or fashion. And that's one of the pushbacks to the whole thing, is that there's no way of knowing how did they arrive at that price.
Mallika Nocco:Yeah, that's kind of what I was getting or kind of getting to is like where's the transparency around those models?
Kathleen Schaefer:Yeah. There isn't any.
Mallika Nocco:Wow.
Kathleen Schaefer:And because they only licensed them, they didn't buy them outright. They don't even have the rights to be able to show them to the public. And in fact, what they license them for, the amount of money is quite small. So they have very limited authorization to share them publicly.
Mallika Nocco:So, we have kind of talked about just the history a little bit about the national flood insurance program and just how it all works. I want to shift a little bit and think about flood preparedness and management. This past year in the summer, we just saw some really devastating floods in Central Texas, flash flooding, and how how quickly that all happened and how how sad it was. And it just reminded all of us that it's just important to be paying attention to flood management, to be ready, to be prepared for these types of disasters. And we were just wondering if you could tell us a little bit about the current challenges of the flood management system and preparedness and how that might relate or not relate to the insurance
Kathleen Schaefer:Yeah. So uh so the incidents in in Texas is a really great example of some of the challenges and some of the shortcomings in our existing system. So we have tended to direct our flood management to FEMA, that FEMA is the one who is going to manage our flood risk for us, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. Right? So the area that flooded where all of the camp, where so many of the young ladies died, that area was in a floodway, which means that there was a high potential for a high velocity flow. And the FEMA process focuses on the buildings. It has this sort of process. If you follow the cookbook, you will arrive at an answer. And then if you have done what you have followed all the directions to the cookbook, then FEMA will change the map to however you want the map to be. So if there's building restrictions that don't allow you to build in a floodway, you can just hire a consultant to do the cookbook and they will adjust the floodway, and you'll be able to build your cabins right up inches according to the map outside of the floodway. And everything will be fine. And it ignores, as I said, ignores the people. And so there is this no thought about what about those, the potential for those people to be in a flash flood area. And so that's the heart of the problem, and why, again, I think changing the dynamic to having thinking about the people first, thinking about the safety of the people and of the young women. What if we would have said that there is a real risk? And yes, you're going to have to build the cabins up a little ways, and yes, all of the campers are going to have to walk a little further to get to the creek. We would have 150 lives that would still be here today. And but that takes a big change. And the other kind of story to that is that these are very rare events, and I would advocate that we have put the whole process in the wrong bucket. We have put it in the bucket with property insurance and automobile insurance, the same bucket as a fender bender or a kitchen fire. When in fact, these flood events, particularly if they happen to a community, they can be a mortal wound to the community or a death to the community. I mean, look at what Katrina, 20 years later, we are still, Katrina is still trying to recover. And so I advocate that we need to change our thinking and put them in the life insurance bucket. And when we put them in the life insurance bucket, then that's a different process. And what do you do? Once a year, you maybe get the two or three people in your family that you want to take care of your children if something were to happen. And you sit down around the kitchen table, you have a thoughtful conversation about where are the children going to live, who's going to take care of them. And it's a bigger conversation than just buying a life insurance policy, right? It's better, it's a bigger conversation than when you go to buy an automobile where you just click on the latest quote and go on with it. And I advocate that if we start thinking about flood insurance more as life insurance for a community, I call it life insurance for levies in the Central Valley, then it provides a safe space for us to have these very difficult and challenging conversations. You know, what happens to your community if that levy fails? How are you going to recover and thrive? What do you need to do now? And what I discovered in my dissertation work and doing the deep dive with the community that I did is that small communities, particularly rural communities, do not have the bandwidth to take these long-term, far-out, maybe could happen kinds of challenges. You need a special, just as you have a special group in your family that talks about your long-term decisions, you need a special place and a special time to have those conversations at the community level.
Mallika Nocco:So, yeah, let's talk a little bit more about that. So it sounds like from a preparedness standpoint and a management standpoint, this really falls more on local communities. And you've worked on the community-based approaches for the flood insurance as well. Can you explain to us just a little bit more about what a community-based approach for flood insurance looks like?
Kathleen Schaefer:Sure. So, as part of my dissertation, I implemented an action research project where I was embedded in the community of Isleton. Isleton is a small community of about 800 people located smack dab in the middle of California. It is surrounded on all fronts by levee. So if the levee fails, they're kind of in a bathtub. And if the levee fails, the entire town is pretty much inundated to some degree or another. And so what we did was we formed a geologic hazard abatement district, which is a special district outside of the city. The boundaries are the same as the city boundaries. The people on the board are city council members, but it is uh separate from the city. And that turned out to be the smartest thing we did because the town is in financial distress, and if we would have had to count on the city council to make decisions, it just would have never happened. So we have this special district.
Mallika Nocco:Just a quick clarification is the ability to form that district, like were there other geological hazard abatement districts? Is that like a California-specific thing that you you were able to put together? And there were already existing guidelines for what that was?
Kathleen Schaefer:Yes, so in California, because of landslides and because of all the you know geologic hazards that we have, 40 years ago, they came up with a scheme called a geologic hazard abatement district, and it allows local property owners to manage their own risk, basically. So we already had the framework, but this was the first time we applied it to flood, to the peril of flood. And it turned out to be the secret. Certainly other places around the nation probably have similar kinds of abilities. The bottom line is that I would advocate that if you're going to manage your actively manage your community's flood risk, you have to have some sort of governance outside of the city council or outside of the county board of supervisors. They are just too overwhelmed with day-to-day things to think about something far out in the future. So we formed a geologic hazard abatement district, and then with that, we were then able to get funding from the Department of Water Resources as a pilot and to purchase what's called a parametric insurance policy. A parametric insurance policy is a relatively new but increasingly popular form of insurance. It is based on some predefined triggering event, and then if the trigger is met, the payment is made. So in our case, there's a water level sensor that is installed at a low point in the town at the wastewater pumping station. And if the sensor is triggered, if the water level reaches a certain level, then a certain payment will be made to the geologic hazard abatement district. And if the levy fails and the water levels get to the point where we think it's going to get, then the community will receive, or the geologic hazard abatement district will receive a $2.5 million payment that they can then distribute to households however they deem necessary. So if they need to give Miss Mills a place to live for a week, there's money and cash to do that. If they need to spend money to reshore up the levy to make sure it doesn't get worse, there's cash. There's a two up to $2.5 million in cash to do that. So we tested it. We found that we can do that. We now know the framework and all of the policies and procedures and the regulations you have to do to comply with that. We can duplicate it anywhere.
Samuel Sandoval Solis:And Kathy, something that I'm not sure if this goes back to our first comment when we were talking about private and public insurance or this kind of win-win situation when you have the public getting involved. It looks to me that this is a private insurance, but bringing the best of the two worlds, right? Like community-based yet. So would you mind explaining or I might be wrong, but I'm thinking that this was the partnership that you were mentioning.
Kathleen Schaefer:Yes, yes. So the framework that we that we laid out as part of my dissertation is a three-tiered program. So tier one, I called it the It Takes a Village Tier. And the idea behind Tier One and what we tested out with the $2.5 million policy is that there is funding predominantly from the government, but some funding maybe from households to get that first layer of coverage. So a little bit of cash immediately after the disaster. And that the amount may be something maybe in the neighborhood of $10,000 or even $20,000, depending on the kind of disaster. But the idea is that it's cash that people can use however they want to use it. And it's funded predominantly by government funds, maybe augmented with a little bit of funding from the households. But then the second tier is what's called what I call the affordable insurance tier. And what I found in my research and in looking at the buying habits for California, and I think it holds nationwide, is that we all have a mental amount of what we think insurance should cost. And that mental amount is about between $800 and $1,000. When it starts being more than $1,000, then our mental mind says, wait a minute, it's not worth it. So the idea behind the give affordable insurance is to kind of buy as much insurance as you can possibly buy for less than $1,000 and have what I call the happy meal package, or what they used to call the preferred risk policy from FEMA, where it's a set amount and everybody is the same. Then tier three is one that's it's um I call it the concierge tier. It's everything else. It's followed, you know, all the other things that you might need. If you need extra insurance because you have a high-end home, you might get it through that tier. And that would be predominantly run by uh the private. But if we wanted to have a means tested arrangement, that's also where the means tested could come in. That if you had a home and you needed to have $250,000 worth of coverage, then you might be required to buy the first layer. But then if you needed help to get to that full $250,000, then maybe you would have another thing. So that that's the idea of sort of layering the coverage, layering the amount that you pay, and adding some flexibility. But it all would be sort of managed or facilitated at the community level. So maybe some of the funding is collected through taxes and maybe it goes into some sort of self-insurance pool, because insurance is always the most expensive option. And so if you can save money before the disaster and have put it into an insurance pool that is available to you, then you can save money and reduce the cost.
Samuel Sandoval Solis:And and Kathy, something that you alluded, but I want to make sure that it is clear is the the price that you mentioned. So it was $800 to $1,000 a month, $30,000 to $100 a year.
Kathleen Schaefer:A year. A year.
Samuel Sandoval Solis:Correct. Yes, I was thinking a year. Just just being clear. And this is extremely important because also in your research you mentioned that unfortunately, there should be some people having insurance that they don't have. And you mentioned that there is a large percentage of people, communities, households that they don't have the insurance that they should have. And one of those things are the price and the right product. So would you mind explaining, elaborating on that?
Kathleen Schaefer:Sure. Getting to that price point, right? Insurance is often referred to as a Goldilocks arrangement. If the flood risk is too frequent, then it's not insurable. If it's too rare, it's difficult to insure because then they don't really know how to price the risk. And if the losses are too small, you know, you don't want to buy insurance for something that only costs you $100, right? So if the losses are too small, they're uninsurable, and if the losses are too big, then you run into aggregation issues, and you know, how do you finance that amount? So insurance is a Goldilocks arrangement. So this idea of thinking about the community and and thinking about how do we put this package, this in some sort of Goldilocks arrangement. But the other part that we need to be thinking about is that in California, many of the people who live in the low-lying areas are low income and they are already housing challenged. So there is just even no way that they can afford flood insurance. And so when you're having to make a decision about whether you pay your rent or whether you buy flood insurance, you know, the wise risk-informed decision is that you pay your rent, which goes against some of the you know the messaging from FEMA. So that's again why this idea of a community-based insurance program where we really look at the people who need the protection and how do we provide some level of recovery finance for them is really it's a new way of looking at it, and it's to date has been completely ignored.
Samuel Sandoval Solis:And I think I mean is unfortunately some of the conditions, situations that all of us here and our audience we inherited these systems, and we're working hard. Perhaps moving forward so what are your thoughts for flood management preparedness and insurance in the future? I mean, considering climate change, the climate crisis, droughts, floods. So what are your hopes or concerns for the coming decades related to floods and flood insurance?
Kathleen Schaefer:Well, I think changing the dynamic, as I mentioned, focusing on how do we how do we make sure that everybody recovers? Thinking about how do we have the financial wherewithal to allow people to financially recover? And focusing, starting there and then working backwards. What do your community need to recover? Um, how much money are you going to need to rebuild your home? Can we have innovative designs where maybe your home floods, but you just hose it off and move on? So starting there and then working backwards is, I think, the future. And surprisingly, there is a lot of opportunity in the insurance market. The insurance market is realizing that they have a lot of tools in their toolbox that can be used to manage the risk. And they're also realizing that if they don't use those tools, then whether it's fire or whether it's flood, there may be a lot of places where the insurance is just not feasible. And if you have a product that you're trying to sell and you have no product to sell, right, if you're an insurance entity and nobody can afford your insurance, then you have nothing to sell. So their concern are how do we make sure that we continue to have something to sell? And what they're starting to see is that they have a bigger role to play in how decisions are made. And they're looking for opportunities to partner with communities. The problem that we have is that that everyone is so entrenched with the national flood insurance program, nobody's thinking outside the box for how do we bring in the expertise from the insurance industry to help us manage our risk better. There are a lot of opportunities.
Mallika Nocco:Yeah, that's that's super helpful to think about. I I really like the kind of reverse design idea that you bring up. So we always like to ask our guests if there's just anything more you want people to know about your work and just how we can all support your efforts.
Kathleen Schaefer:Well, what I found is that the idea of a community-based insurance program works. We know how to do it, we can make make it happen. The problem that we have is that in order to put the framework in place, it requires some upfront cash for a few years to build the assessment district, to finance the assessment district for a few years, to do that initial assessment of what is the true flood risk, what's the appetite for the insurers. And without having that upfront cash, it's a chicken and the egg problem where the insurance industry is waiting at the door wanting to come in, but they can't do it all pro bono, and they can't certainly can't do it if there's no guarantee at the end of the day there's something for them. And then on the other side, you have no organization or no no one interested in the long term and in working with the insurance industry to be able to bring them into the tent. So, what we tested and what we benefited from with the innovative ideas from the Department of Water Resources is that they gave us and are continuing for a couple of years to give us the seed money that we need to get it going. And we just now need to show that it does work, but it's going to require the seed funding and probably from some federal, some state or federal entities to to help manage it. So, yeah, like everyone, I'm always looking for money.
Samuel Sandoval Solis:But also I think bringing the the community approach, right? That we always think like it is either national or state, but within our local community, as you mentioned, uh a smaller group, and then start talking about these type of events that uh typically our mind tries to block. But the reality is that if if we approach it as you're saying, as a life insurance and what will happen and so on, we can move forward, and I'm really happy to have from the community to the outside, not from the outside into the community. Kathy, thank you so much for joining us.
Kathleen Schaefer:Thank you so much for the opportunity. I'm greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Samuel Sandoval Solis:So, Malika, what about uh your parting gifts?
Mallika Nocco:I learned a lot in this episode. I didn't I don't know very much about insurance, and I don't know very much about just the aftermath of a flood. So I just hearing some of the details was really, really interesting and powerful for me, as well as just her kind of vision for the future and this idea that we have to think about how we want to recover and what that recovery looks like, and then design backwards from there. Also, I just didn't know how I guess I didn't have a sense of how much some of these national programs were failing people. So that was sad to hear about. Though it was helpful. Sometimes on Water Talk we talk about problems, but we don't talk about solutions. So, but it was helpful to hear like, okay, there is a failure happening, but this community approach could be an attractive solution. It's just it's gonna require communities to have foresight and think about it. And also I thought it was interesting that it needs to be something that's different from local governments. But what about you, Sam? What were your parting gifts?
Samuel Sandoval Solis:You know, for for me, yeah, the context the flood insurance and talking, flood insurance, flood management, and flood insurance in colloquial words, that to me it was very nice. An other thing that it is a parting gift that I had with Kathy when I was when we were preparing for this episode that she didn't mention was, and I want to share with our audience the fact that while we are talking about of the recovery, the first thing that Kathy and I we were thinking is that the most important thing is in a flood is that everyone is alive, the life of people. And when we when I was discussing with her, we mentioned that immediately after a family, a community is still with us, the most immediate thought is like, okay, so what are the finances or what am I going to do with trying to rebuild, trying to bring any part of our life back? And that has to do a lot with money. So the parting gift that I have from Kathy is that first things is life, and that after one such as these devastating events, that everyone is alive. And once you have that, what are the things that can be helpful for everyone so it can be rebuilt? And that is the parting gift that I have that all what we we discuss is is how we can bring our life together.
Mallika Nocco:Alright, that feels like a great place to end. I'll see you soon, Sam. Thanks.
Faith Kerns:Thank you for listening to the Water Talk Podcast. I'm Faith Kearns and I'm the Director of Research Communications with the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative at Arizona State University.
Samuel Sandoval Solis:My name is Samuel Sandoval. I'm a professor at UC Davies and a cooperative extension specialist in water resources management at the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
Mallika Nocco:I'm Molly Kanoco, Assistant Professor and State Extension Specialist in Agricultural Water Management at the University of Wisconsin Madison. If you enjoy our show, please review, listen, like, and subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Please find transcripts and additional content at WatertalkPodcast.com. Original music by Paloma Herrera Thomas.