There Will Be Flood

Planet Money

NPR

Business, News

4.6 • 29.8K Ratings

🗓️ 6 December 2024

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Windell Curole spent decades working to protect his community in southern Louisiana from the destructive flooding caused by hurricanes. His local office in South Lafourche partnered with the federal government's Army Corps of Engineers to build a massive ring of earthen mounds – also known as levees – to keep the floodwaters at bay.

But after Hurricane Katrina called into question the integrity of those levees, Windell decided to take a gamble that put him at odds with his partners in the Army Corps. He decided that the best thing he could do to protect his community was to go rogue and build his levees as tall as possible as quickly as possible, without federal permission.

On today's show, what the story of Windell's levee can teach us about how the federal government calculates and manages the risk of natural disasters, and how those calculations can look a lot different to the people staring straight into the eye of the storm.

This episode was hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi and Mary Childs. It was produced by Emma Peaslee and edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Valentine Rodriguez Sanchez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This message comes from NPR sponsor Freakonomics Radio.
0:04.2	Freakonomics co-author Stephen J. Dubner discovers the hidden side of everything, from the quirks of human behavior to pollution and bananas.
0:13.1	Freakonomics uncovers the things you never knew you wanted to know.
0:17.0	Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
0:19.7	Hey, it's Erica Barris, a quick word before the show to talk about this year and all the
0:25.6	different kinds of stories you heard on Planet Money.
0:28.3	This year, we brought you stories about inflation, disinflation, stagflation, stiflation,
0:33.2	skinflation, dynamic pricing.
0:34.8	What is Timu?
0:35.8	Banking apps, rum taxes, the main potato war of 1976.
0:39.9	So many stories about so many different things.
0:43.4	Semiconductors?
0:44.3	And the one thing they all have in common?
0:46.9	AI, trade fraud, is we work really hard on each of them.
0:50.9	So that they make you smarter.
0:56.0	And they're fun to listen to. Tiny soda cans, zombie mortgages, why flying sucks, and another edition of Planet Money Summer
1:02.0	School.
1:03.0	So this is the time of year when we say, hey, if that stuff was useful to you, if you made
1:08.4	us a part of your day in the car on the train while you were doing
1:11.0	dishes. Chip in and help keep us going. Your support matters so much that NPR basically
1:18.7	invented an entire new product that we will give you to incentivize your donation. We're talking
1:25.2	about NPR Plus. Maybe you're already a plus supporter. If so,
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -31 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.