The Plain Math of Disaster Preparedness: 'Every Dollar We Spent Saved 5 Dollars in Future Losses'

You may not remember the Great Flood of 1993, in which the Missouri and Mississippi rivers and their tributaries overran their banks. In a series of inundations that lasted for months, the floods covered 30,000 square miles across nine states, causing $15 billion in property damage, killing more than 30 people, destroying entire towns and millions of acres of crops.

You may not remember it, but James Lee Witt, then head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, recalls it well.