How floodplain buyouts work

The U.S. government is buying up and destroying American homes. Homeowners in the floodplain are choosing to voluntarily sell their doomed properties to the government. Since 1989, FEMA has helped fund around 45 to 50,000 home buyouts. FEMA is estimated to have spent somewhere around $4 billion on the project so far but that's just a fraction of the total amount spend on buyouts, since there are programs outside of FEMA. But not everyone is convinced buyouts are a good idea.