Plain pains : Redefining county’s flood plains could affect insurance needs
Posted on Thursday, May 8, 2008
Washington County Planning Director Juliet Richey is trying to get the word out about changes to areas designated as flood plains.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency's new map will go into effect May 16. At that time, there will be about 140 county residents who will be in a flood plain who were not previously in it, Richey said.
The new map will mark an end to a four-year process to update the county maps.
"This has been ongoing since I started working here," Richey said, referring to the effort to revamp the county's flood-plain maps.
FEMA is undergoing a map modernization movement. Washington County was among the priority counties because of the growth it has experienced in recent years, Richey said. Likewise, Benton County finished updating its floodplain map about six months ago.
The four-year process has included opportunity for public review with preliminary maps available to peruse, Richey said.
She said this is the first time there has been a county-wide update since 1991.
"There have been updates to pieces of the map since 1991," she said, adding that parts also were updated in 1999 and 2001.
The flood-plain modification will prompt changes in flood insurance requirements for some property owners.
National Flood Insurance Program Washington County became part of the National Flood Insurance Program in 1991.
Congress established the program with the passage of the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968. The program enables property owners in participating communities to buy insurance as protection against flood losses in exchange for state and community flood-plain management regulations that reduce future flood damages.
Community participation in the program is voluntary. Each community must assess its flood haz- ard and determine whether flood insurance and flood-plain management would benefit the community's residents and economy, according to www. floodsmart. gov., the Web site for the program. Flood Insurance Rate Maps show the high-risk areas where there is at least 1 percent annual chance of flooding. In these areas, also known as Special Flood Hazard Areas, flood insurance is required for mortgages from a federally regulated lender. The maps also show the low- or moderate-risk areas where flood insurance is optional but recommended, according to FEMA information.
Grandfathering in Those county residents who are reclassified in the flood plain can be grandfathered in with their old nonflood-plain zone if they built their house out of the flood plain. But Richey found out something about a month ago at a flood-plain administration class that prompted her to send letters to people whose zones will change.
She discovered that people who built their homes before Sept. 18, 1991 - when Washington County joined the National Flood Insurance Program - cannot be grandfathered in to nonflood-plain zones unless they have purchased flood insurance prior to the maps changing.
"You can get flood insurance at the old zoned rate," Richey said, which is why the letters have been sent to people a few weeks before the effective date of change. The "old"zone is considered to be Zone X, which is outside the 100-year flood plain for insurance purposes.
People who will not be grandfathered in because they built their homes before 1991 will probably get lower insurance rates if they get flood insurance before May 16, Richey said.
"You can still get flood insurance later," she said, advising people that the best thing they can do - if they are in this situation - is to talk to their insurance agents before May 16 "and get locked into the existing zone."
FEMA does not come right out and say the rates are lower for those in non-floodplain zones, but Richey said her understanding is that the rates could be lower in those zones.
Flood plain changes Richey said flood plains will not necessarily increase in size, but there are changes. Contours determining elevations in 1991 were arrived at using the best available contour information at the time, she said. Now there is better contour information for a lot of counties, and FEMA is adjusting the flood plains with that information, essentially providing better data to map out the flood areas, she said. "It just can change the shape of them," she said. Determining who will change to a flood-plain zone, so the letters could be sent to the 140 people who will change zones, involved scanning in existing maps, overlaying those with county aerial photographs and overlaying new digital maps, Richey said. About 20 people have responded to the letters, and at least half of these people's affected property turned out to be barns or sheds. "People probably aren't going to carry flood insurance for their barn," Richey said. "There have been several that are homes that are now in there, too. It was good for those people to know. "She said about 100 other letters have been sent to people owning property where the planning officials could not determine whether a change will occur.
"Obviously it's not a perfect system since we're scanning in the paper maps and overlaying aerials," Richey said," but it's as good as we can do right now. "
Sending out the letters was something Richey decided on her own to do, but she has consulted with FEMA about it.
Property owners can have structures built after 1991 locked into the old zone for insurance purposes after the new maps are in place - regardless of whether they were insured prior to May 16 - as long as they can bring a copy of the Flood Insurance Rate Map effective at the time the structure was built. The Washington County Planning Office can help provide copies of portions of those maps if needed.
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