Building a house in the woods is a bit different than building on a flood plain. Fire we can prevent and control if the bureaucraps don't get in the way. Floods caused bu major rain are a bit more difficult but can be prevented if we quit screwing with the topography. There was an excellent documentary on TV a couple of nights ago, Either Manitoba or Saskatchewan, a biosphere protected area that is largely farmland. When they were mostly growing cows the land was prettymuch left as nature designed it, beaver dams, swamps etc. Then markets and Agribiz dictated they grow food crops and all the brush was cleared and land levelled for machine production. All of a sudden they had floods like never before and some smart cookie tried redesigning the land to be more natural. Fixed most of the problem.