Sedgwick County to release new floodplain maps

Jan. 21--New floodplain maps for Sedgwick County should be available on the county's website Wednesday.

Some property owners will find themselves in a floodplain for the first time -- meaning they'll have to buy flood insurance -- and others will learn that they no longer are. Floodplains change because of development and improvements to drainage.

Only residents who have federally backed loans on homes or other structures in floodplains are required to get flood insurance from the National Flood Insurance Program. If a home or other structure is owned outright, insurance is not required.

"There will be new structures that have to look into flood insurance," said Kelly Dixon, codes and floodplains technician for the Metropolitan Area Building and Construction Department. "There will be people who have been paying insurance who won't have to anymore."

Dixon said that 2,774 structures in the unincorporated areas of the county have been taken out of the floodplain. About 1,710 structures in unincorporated areas have been added. A spokeswoman said the county was trying to get the maps up on its website, www.sedgwickcounty.org, on Wednesday.

Information about how the new maps would affect homes, business and other properties in the city of Wichita was not available Tuesday.

"These were driven by a map modernization project by FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency)," Dixon said of the new maps.

The county got its first floodplain maps in 1986. In 2007, the maps were put in digital form for the first time, Dixon said.

"This is our first really true update where they've gone in and actually looked at all of our streams and used engineering methods to determine base flood elevations," Dixon said. "These are some of the most accurate maps we've seen. They are probably some of the most accurate maps in the country."

Development affects floodplains because "more impervious surfaces cause more runoff, then floodplains change downstream," Dixon said.

The maps come after concerns that FEMA was not going to recertify the so-called Big Ditch. The Big Ditch was completed in 1959 for $20 million and was designed to protect people and property from a 100-year flood, a flood so severe that it has only a 1 percent chance of occurring each year.

In 2010, FEMA notified area cities that it had started drawing new floodplain maps without the Big Ditch system, a move that would have required thousands of homeowners to buy flood insurance or pay higher rates for existing policies. FEMA eventually signed off on the levee system, which underwent some repairs.

Public meetings about the flood maps will take place in April. The maps become effective in spring 2016.

Commission Chairman Richard Ranzau asked Dixon on Tuesday if the county must adopt the maps. Dixon said the county must accept them to continue to participate in the flood insurance program.

Property owners can appeal. The appeal period begins in April and ends in July.

"We want to get these (the maps) out so the public can see them before that 90-day appeals process starts," Dixon said Tuesday.

Reach Deb Gruver at 316-268-6400 or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @SGCountyDeb.

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