The New York Times has an article about one of the Iowa towns that has been dealing with severe flooding this year:

This is not the first time this tiny city in a valley of rolling hills 70 miles northeast of Des Moines has been mostly under water, as it is now, a soaking casualty of the swollen Iowa River, the Otter Creek and this endlessly wet spring.

In 1993, when floodwaters inundated Chelsea, population 297, and thousands of other communities across the Midwest, killing 50 people and damaging 50,000 homes in nine states, the people here, unlike those in most places, decided to think long and hard about moving the whole community to higher ground.
...
But the reality of the move proved much more contentious than the idea, and just a few homeowners ended up taking advantage of the federal aid available for relocation and buyouts.

So we offered to buy up their homes, and move them somewhere else.  And instead, we helped pay to rebuild their homes.  Why?  For how many of those home owners is this their second or third major flood?  At some point in time, when does our community stop being responsible for paying for your bad mistakes?  I can understand once, but twice?  Three times?

When we helped rebuild instead of move in 1993, should we have also said... the next one is on you?