Redrawing Flood Maps:
A New National Priority
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is about to launch an extensive nationwide effort to redraw the maps that predict where floods are likely to occur, a move that will have major financial implications for homeowners, property developers and the government-run flood-insurance program.
The effort comes as Hurricane Isabel made landfall recently, lashing parts of the Eastern Seaboard with strong winds and torrents of rain, and bringing the specter of destructive deluges to millions of Americans.
"Flooding is our most frequent and most costly hazard," says Anthony S. Lowe, director of the Mitigation Division at FEMA, which earlier this year joined the Department of Homeland Security. "These maps are used 25 million times a year," he says. "We're talking about a huge variety of people, from insurance professionals to folks in communities to decide where to locate their homes." Three-quarters of the 100,000 flood maps nationwide are over a decade old.
Flood-related property damage is on the rise, up to nearly $6 billion a year, from around $3.3 billion in the 1980s, according to the National Weather Service.
New flood maps can create deep puddles for homeowners and real-estate developers. Landowners have a strong financial interest to keep the map lines off their property since being in a flood zone increases construction and insurance costs. Zoning ordinances often restrict development on land that falls in a mapped flood zone or require mitigation techniques such as keeping building heights two feet above where floods are common.
For property owners, being in a flood zone on the map can mean having to buy into the FEMA-run National Flood Insurance Program, the sole underwriter of such insurance. Homeowners with federally regulated mortgages are required to have flood coverage. Some 4.4 million homeowners participate, paying an average of $403 a year, a figure that includes those outside designated flood zones who voluntarily buy insurance at reduced rates. People in the flood zone "pay significantly more than $403 because the premiums fluctuate according to the risk," says Mark Stevens, a FEMA spokesman.
The bite that flood insurance takes is on top of regular homeowners-insurance policies, which jumped 7% in average cost this year to $569 and are expected to go up another 8% next year, according to the Insurance Information Institute, an industry-backed research group.
North Carolina, which started its own mapping process several years ago, provides a glimpse of how the process may play out across the country (See www.ncfloodmaps.com). So far, for instance, 25 counties in the state have new flood maps, but homeowners in a subdivision in Rocky Mount, near flood-prone Stony Creek, aren't buying the changes. Wardlaw Lamar, a local attorney whose house borders the creek, says mapping officials "made a knee-jerk reaction to some unusual circumstances along Stony Creek."
Those "unusual circumstances" were the floods caused by Hurricane Floyd in 1999 and the storms that preceded it. The rains sank Mr. Lamar's living room in six feet of water and forced him to move in with his mother-in-law while repairs were made. The new map's flood boundary runs across the other side of the street, an area that he says didn't even carry standing water during Floyd.
As part of its push, FEMA has selected Michael Baker Corp., a Pittsburgh-based engineering company, to handle the enormous mapping effort and is in final negotiations on what is expected to be a potential $750 million, five-year contract. The remapping of the entire country would involve sending squadrons of aircraft equipped with laser-pulsing sensors to measure, down to a foot and a half, the contours and fissures that determine where flood waters collect. IBM Global Services Inc., a consulting unit of International Business Machines Corp., also is expected to take part in the contract.
The total cost of the program is expected to be $1 billion and take seven years. Congress appropriated $150 million in the 2003 fiscal year budget and is likely to raise that amount to $200 million for 2004.
FEMA won't say whether the mapping process will increase or decrease the number of properties in the high-risk designation, or whether insurance premiums will rise or fall as a result. But experts say real-estate growth has had a direct effect on how high flood waters rise in bad storms.
"Generally speaking, flood levels have gone up because of more development," says Larry Larson, executive director of the Association of State Flood Plain Managers, a professional group based in Madison, Wis. As land is paved over for driveways and parking lots, the ground's ability to drink up rain water is reduced, he says.
Northeastern Indiana knows all too well the perils of inaccurate flood maps. The area was the victim of "the firecracker floods" last Independence Day.
"Without a doubt, development in the flood plain added to the fact that we crested higher than ever," says Rodney Renkenberger, executive director of the Maumee River Basin Commission, which supervises the area's drainage. Flood maps in two of the hardest-hit counties, Adams and Allen, haven't been updated since 1981 and 1990, respectively. Almost $30 million in disaster assistance already has been allotted by FEMA to assist storm victims.
North Carolina shared a similar experience following Hurricane Floyd. "After Hurricane Floyd, we determined that 80% of all homes damaged or destroyed weren't shown in a flood zone," says John Dorman, administrator for the North Carolina Flood Plain Mapping Program.
As for Mr. Lamar, he and his neighbors are talking about hiring an engineer to survey the area themselves, at a cost of around $25,000. Meantime, he had a tree trimmer come by in advance of Isabel to take out five poplar trees near his house. "I'm worried about those 150 mile-per-hour winds."
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