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Some of them might be found in northeast Raleigh's aptly named River Bend Plantation neighborhood, part of which is at risk of flooding anytime the corps has to release heavy volumes from storm-swollen Falls Lake.

Off Buffaloe Road, the bucolic, heavily wooded neighborhood is wedged between the Neuse River and Beaverdam Creek.

That's where homebuilder David Burns and his wife Yvonne, a WakeMed cardiovascular monitor technician, are building their family of five a two-story home on a low-lying riverfront lot.

The Burns' dream home is being built about eight feet off the ground to get it up out of the 100-year floodplain -- but not nearly high enough to remain safe if the Falls Lake dam breaks upstream.

"I didn't know that," Yvonne Burns said to her husband one day last week. "Did you know that?"

No, he didn't.

But they're not too worried.

"It's engineered to the hilt," David Burns said. "It should be unsinkable. If it ever happens, maybe it won't be in our lifetime."

Yvonne Burns said she worries more about her family's routine health than the minor threat of a catastrophic flood.

"This place is so beautiful -- why would I give that up out of fear?" she asked. "Everything except my children and my husband is replaceable. I told him to strap a canoe on the roof, so if we have to, we can get out."

Several government officials said the risk must be considered in light of its slim probability and the natural desire of people such as the Burnses to live near water.

They compared it to living at the beach, where a hurricane could strike any year, or next to a highway or a railroad carrying hazardous cargo.

"It's one of those risks that people who enjoy the environment are comfortable with," said Tom Freeman, the corps' operations manager at Falls Lake.

"I know what I would do," he said. "Absolutely nothing."

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