In the midst of the lengthy and costly recovery process our area is undergoing, we cannot forget preparedness. As such, we must prepare now for the next big rain event.

It is good news that federal dollars will soon be available for repairs and in addition to those funds, we must also seek grants for disaster mitigation because the fact of the matter is, we should expect more storms like Harvey.

While a rainstorm like that of Tropical Storm Harvey might be rare, calling it a 500-year storm is a mistake. This is because the term seems to imply that a storm of this caliber only happens once every 500 years, though this isn’t how statistics works at all. Just because a coin tossed has a 50 percent chance of landing on heads, does not mean it will do so half of the time. A coin might happen to land heads nine out of 10 times—this is just how things happen.

Likewise, a 100-year storm has a one percent chance of occurring in any given year and a 500-year storm has a .2 percent chance—meaning only that the occurrence should be infrequent but not that it cannot happen in any given year.

The leadership of Drainage District Seven has indicated an interest in seeking mitigation funds. This is good news and we hope county and city officials will work with the drainage district to invest in bigger, better infrastructure.

We cannot fault anyone for being unprepared for a rain event the likes of which we had never seen.

However, having just gone through Harvey and having seen what a 500-year storm looks like, we should at least prepare for this again. A storm that big may never come again—and we hope it doesn’t—but if it does, we cannot afford to be caught surprised.