I'm not making this up. She admits it.
Where else but in The Nation, here:
Troy floods. It has since before the Dutch arrived. I didn’t know this when I bought my house. I bought it because the chiming, rippling Poesten Kill canal runs through the backyard; because it has rusty old tin ceilings; and because I wanted to be a member of a vibrant, diverse urban neighborhood that comes together in summer evenings. ... When I realized that the property was in a floodplain, I hesitated and asked around. Friends, real-estate agents, and neighbors assuaged my fears: It’s a 100-year floodplain, they said—and look at the height of those canal embankments! You’ll be fine. ... We weren’t legally required to have flood insurance, and we couldn’t find enough money in the budget for it anyway. So we decided that we would take our chances. ...