suspicious of the aggregated statistics. The approach that it seemed wise to
take was not to rely so much on the statistics but, rather, to go and look on
the ground at what had happened to land use. That provides more precise,
accurate information.
Q: Let me pursue that for a moment, because it's something near and dear to my
heart as an historian. When planners of any sort, water planners, come up
with data to justify a project it seems like they usually go to National Weather
Service data, or perhaps to the Corps. And they look at things like gauge
readings, maybe climatic conditions, things of this sort. But they look at it
from a relatively broad point of view. In other words, there may be a gauge
reading that shows a river flooded but it doesn't show how long the river
flooded in a particular place, how much damage was done, or even whether
the people were seriously affected by flood damage. That kind of data can
only be obtained, it seems to me, from newspapers, from interviewing people,
and so on. It's not the kind of data that's collected on a formal basis by
interviewers, so far as I know.
So how do people come up with data that really is convincing data? As an
historian, I know several cases where an agency comes up with data that
suggests there's a horrible flood problem, but when you look at it by reading
contemporary accounts and so forth, people weren't really seriously adversely
affected. What's the answer to that?
A: One of the projects of the old Water Resources Committee was to try to get
the federal agencies to adopt a uniform system for collecting flood damage
data. I have a report that we published at that time. It had only modest
effect on the activities of the agencies. We never persuaded the National
Weather Service, Soil Conservation Service, and the Corps to adopt
completely reconciled and searching modes of obtaining damage data. I say
searching modes because it was, I think, early apparent that rather than
depending on quick surveys after a flood and newspaper data from previous
floods, it would be desirable to have very careful sample investigations of
selected areas which would then enable the investigator to make estimates of
what the full set of gains and losses would be from different modes of using
the floodplain. This is what one wanted to come out with in the long run.
We never were able to get agencies to do that. The nearest approach to it
came when the old Water Resources Council began collecting data. It,
however, was dependent upon modes of data collection and record keeping
and publication practiced by the respective agencies involved.
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