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Monday, November 15, 2004

Indiana Law - Indiana's flood maps reportedly outdated

The Indianapolis Star has a story today headlined "Old flood plain maps can lead to trouble." The lead talks about a family that, "like most Indiana homeowners," did not have flood insurance. Some quotes from the story:

They weren't required to because their home wasn't shown on federal maps to be in a flood plain, an area of overspill from a nearby waterway.

But most of Indiana's flood plain maps are so outdated that they may not reflect actual flooding risks after decades of development and filling, leaving some Hoosiers with a false sense of security and a few with thousands of dollars in losses.

More than half of Indiana's flood plain maps are more than 15 years old, and in some areas they're 25 years old.

"It could very well be the case that a house is in a flood plain now but wasn't 25 years ago, or that (maps) might identify areas as subject to risk when they aren't," said Jon Stolz, manager of Christopher Burke Engineering, an Indianapolis firm that specializes in land-use planning and advises an alliance of communities along upper White River.

Flood plain maps, created by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, are supposed to be a sort of safety net.

If homes are in a flood-prone area, mortgage lenders usually require owners to buy flood insurance. The maps also serve as a warning to residents that their property is vulnerable.

In Hamilton County, for example, FEMA issued new flood plain maps in 2003 that added previously unlisted parcels to the flood hazard area. As a result, public works officials in rapidly growing Fishers announced that some unprotected homeowners might have to get flood insurance.

They also warned that homeowners who are not contacted by their lenders might not learn of their new status, or the potential for flood damage, unless they tried to refinance their mortgage.

Malls, subdivisions, roadways and other development can change where water goes and how fast it moves, making updated flood maps critical, Stolz said. * * *

By the mid-1960s, U.S. insurance companies wanted out of the flood insurance business, calling it too risky and too costly.

So in 1968, the National Flood Insurance Program was begun, allowing residents whose communities joined the program to buy insurance guaranteed by the federal government. Private insurers still sold the policies, but FEMA underwrote them, set the rates and paid insurers' commissions.

But to develop rates, FEMA needed to identify areas at risk of flooding.

The agency drew maps outlining flood plains with the intention of updating them periodically. But too little money was allocated to update maps, and the agency fell years behind, said Mary Jo Mullen, a FEMA engineer.

Hurricane Floyd, which brought disastrous flooding to North Carolina in 1999, helped call attention to the issue because outdated flood plain maps made it impossible for state authorities to plan for and manage the flooding. In 2001, Congress announced a five-year, billion-dollar program to update the maps, which began last year. But FEMA says it still needs help from cities and states to get the job done.

In Indiana -- where the Labor Day flood underscored the need to update maps -- the state Department of Natural Resources is leading FEMA's map modernization efforts. It has converted old paper maps to a computerized, digital format, which allows them to be overlaid with satellite photos that show exactly where houses have been built and filling has occurred, said David Knipe, manager of the DNR engineering section.

Next, the DNR wants to begin redrawing flood plain boundaries; that would include looking at areas where flooding occurred outside the original flood plain, Knipe said.

"All that flooding will help us in redoing the maps," he said. "We plan to meet with each county . . . and get their input as to where the maps are wrong."

Marion County's maps were converted to a digital format in 2001, but the boundaries were not redrawn, said Donna Price, Indianapolis' flood plain manager and liaison to FEMA. Flood plain maps for the city last were revised in 1988.

"We had been asking for a long time to get updated (maps) because we have to regulate by these maps, and we need to protect citizens," Price said. "Without accurate maps, we could allow a structure to get built that could get flooded."

As parts of this story sounded familiar, I looked back and found an Indiana Law Blog entry from Sept. 19, 2003, which began by quoting from a front-page Wall Street Journal story from that day:
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 entry also reports on the:
$1.7 million the department will give each state and U.S. territory to update flood maps. * * * Congress has approved $150 million for fiscal 2003 to start the remapping process. In the second phase of financing, states will have two years to create plans for managing more money to modernize maps and maintain flood hazard information. Financing for the second phase has not been determined.
Access the entire ILB 9/17/03 entry here. [Unfortunately, for some reason I can only link to the entire month of Sept. 2003, so you will have to scroll a little more than halfway down to find the entry titled "Law - FEMA to Redraw Nation's Flood Maps." Or use your browser's FIND tool.]

Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 15, 2004 02:04 PM
Posted to Indiana Law