[maximente]

this seems to ignore a crucial section of the article, which details how the engineers decide to in this case close particular sections of the drainage system to ostensibly protect the powerful, even when it affects neighborhoods their families live in.

if as you say,

> The decisions must eventually come down to the P/Es

then there's reason to believe that an entire class of people will always bear the externalities of these "solutions", which are solutions in the sense of out of sight, out of mind.