Is it really beyond science to prdict the speed and size of a flood down a river?

Are we too busy exploring Mars to bother to study the Mississippi River, and how it works? Obviously, we still do not understand how our main reiver works..and nobody cares.

We have NASA for space work, should we have a NOAA for river atudy, floods, control, pollution, etc.

A guess nobody cares, except when rivers flood.

It seems we must have a disaster before we note our ignorance is greater than it should be.