WASHINGTON, DC–The news coming out of Texas, Houston in particular, has been heartbreaking. Indeed, the Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Brock Long told CNN that “FEMA is going to be there for years.” The state of Louisiana and other parts of the Gulf Coast are now facing some peril from the remnants of Hurricane Harvey as well.

All in all, Hurricane Harvey is a storm that has rivaled Hurricane Katrina in misery and destruction.

In a larger sense it has also served to highlight — just as Katrina did — the weaknesses of the National Flood Insurance Program. It just so happened that Harvey roared ashore with the NFIP set to expire at the end of September unless reauthorized by Congress. The program is also in debt by some $25 billion in large part because of Hurricane Katrina as well as Superstorm Sandy. How much further into the red Hurricane Harvey will push the program remains to be seen.