Maryland has hundreds of properties that have repeatedly suffered damaging floods. Few are prepared for the next deluge. [Baltimore Sun]

The first of a trio of deluges to hit historic Ellicott City since 2011 was enough to make Vince Saulsbury buy flood insurance for his 122-year-old rowhouse atop Main Street.

So when devastating surges of stormwater roared down the old mill town’s steep hillsides in 2016 and 2018, the insurance paid Saulsbury more than $30,000. He used the money to clean out muck, replace insulation, water heaters and furnaces, and line the dirt floor of his basement with concrete. He has done whatever he can, like storing boxes and tools high on shelves, to cut his losses the next time the Tiber Branch overflows in his backyard.

“I lost tons of stuff over three floods,” he said. “I’ve learned to just not put anything down there.”

But he knows even his best efforts won’t stop the next flood. And that predicament highlights a problem spread across Maryland as climate change makes coastal waters rise and storms intensify.

High waters have caused repeated damage to more than 1,300 flood-insured homes, businesses and government buildings in the state in recent decades, according to data obtained by The Baltimore Sun. But only about one in every eight has been improved in ways likely to prevent significant future flood losses — and those are costs that taxpayers eventually could shoulder.

Preparing more of those homes and buildings to withstand floods is necessary to protect lives and properties from disasters, with as much as $19 billion worth of flood damage expected in Maryland by 2050. It is difficult for a number of reasons, starting with that high cost.

The slow action frustrates residents like Saulsbury. He wishes more could be done to rein in development and reduce the runoff that comes like an avalanche down Ellicott City’s rocky slopes, sending the Tiber and Hudson branches of the Patapsco River overflowing onto Main Street.

Meanwhile, his National Flood Insurance Program premium has grown from $680 a year to more than $2,500, although that doesn’t begin to cover what he has collected in claims from the federal insurer.

“It’s still a net loss for them,” he said. “It’s still a net loss for everybody.”

For most residents whose homes face any amount of flood risk, the federal flood insurance program is the only way to protect against losses when disaster hits. It was established within FEMA in 1968 as a backstop insurer after many private companies dropped flood zone coverage because it was too costly.

But because it’s a government program, rather than a business, even the most flood-prone properties can file claims again and again. Historically, repetitively flooded properties have accounted for 1% of flood insurance policies, while estimates of their share of the claims paid range from about a fifth to a third.

As climate change makes floods more frequent and storms more potent, the insurance program’s proponents and critics agree it’s broken. Its losses have mounted so much that in 2017, after hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, Congress had to step in to cover $16 billion of its debt. And yet, FEMA still owed the U.S. Treasury for more than $20 billion in flood insurance claims as of March 2020.

In Maryland, the situation is as unsustainable as anywhere. As of November 2020, there were 1,342 repetitively flooded properties. Meanwhile, only 173, about 13%, have made improvements to prevent losses. Such improvements often include raising a building several feet off the ground, installing flood vents in foundations, or elevating water heaters, furnaces and air conditioning units.

In states such as Louisiana and Texas, each with more than 30,000 properties with multiple large claims, the low rate of improvements is comparable to that of Maryland. In other states, including Florida, as few as 5% had been improved as of 2019.

Another prevention against repeated losses is using government money to buy flood-prone properties and tear them down. But that’s a strategy that, in even the most flood-weary parts of Maryland, many consider too extreme.

Maryland leaders acknowledge more action is needed. They said they hope the recent Coastal Adaptation Report Card, which the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science released earlier this year, will help spur it. The report card gave the state a B-minus overall for its planning and preparations around coastal flooding. But the state received failing grades for two categories measuring risks to repetitively flooded properties and to critical facilities, including police and fire stations and hospitals.

“I hope it’ll mean even greater investments in smart coastal management and investing in infrastructure that ... is not going to be under water imminently,” state Environment Secretary Ben Grumbles said when the evaluation was released.

More of those investments could come as FEMA and the state seek to better communicate flood risk and the importance of flood insurance to property owners in places that previously might not have been considered at risk.

To improve the federal flood insurance program’s finances, new rates are set to take effect next month that better reflect current risk. That means about 3% of the 65,000 policyholders in Maryland will pay at least $120 more per year in premiums, according to FEMA. Instead of simply basing premiums on a structure’s location in a flood zone, FEMA will begin taking into account variables including the type of foundation and the elevation of its lowest level.

Those reforms give property owners an incentive to take a more proactive approach, potentially reducing their insurance bills by raising their homes or flood-proofing their basements.

Maryland, meanwhile, soon could afford to do more large projects to prevent floods. The state was the first in the country to establish a loan program tied to a new $500 million federal initiative on climate change resiliency.

The General Assembly approved the Resilient Maryland Revolving Loan Fund last year with $25 million for such projects. That amount is designed to help secure investment from the federal initiative, created through the Safeguarding Tomorrow through Ongoing Risk Mitigation Act, or STORM Act.

Sen. Katie Fry Hester, a Howard County Democrat whose district includes Ellicott City, said she hopes there is more beyond that. Projects funded through the Resilient Maryland fund and STORM Act could compete for a separate federal infrastructure program — through which Baltimore soon could receive $32 million to prevent flooding. That would mean the state’s initial $25 million investment could translate into hundreds of millions of dollars more in federally funded resiliency work.

Hester also is sponsoring legislation in the current General Assembly session to establish a state chief resilience officer. A new office within the Maryland Department of Emergency Management would oversee disparate efforts to prepare for climate change.

“We need to take a whole-state approach to dealing with these problems so the next flood’s not as bad as the last,” Hester said.

The scope of the problem remains unclear.

The Flood Mitigation Industry Association, a trade group representing the contractors who raise houses and perform other work to prevent damage, estimates that the number of properties damaged and repeatedly repaired is two or three times larger than the amount FEMA reports.

Roderick Scott, the group’s chairman, said the skyrocketing cost of flood insurance over the past decade means many owners choose to forgo it, even if their mortgage requires they maintain a policy.

Anna Weber, who studies flood insurance as a policy analyst with the National Resources Defense Council, said that without more information about where repetitive flooding occurs, it’s difficult to draw attention to the problem and better inform the residents it affects.

“How can you plan to address the situation when you don’t even know the full scope of it?” she asked.

That is true even in some places at greatest risk. Take Selsey Road in West Ocean City, for example.

The low-lying, dead-end street with sweeping views of Isle of Wight Bay and Ocean City high-rises has at least two homes that have flooded multiple times. Worcester County data shows they have combined to account for six flood insurance claims worth more than $37,000.

But many residents there who spoke with The Baltimore Sun said they had never had water rise into their homes, and didn’t expect it to anytime soon.

There are frequent signs of its threat, when the bay surges past a beach that runs along the north side of the street, said Monty Lewis, who has lived at the end of the street since 1977. Lewis said it happens at least once a month. He expects it will get worse if something isn’t done to hold the water back.

The 80-year-old said he’s skeptical of a county plan to shore up the beach and a marsh that has all but vanished nearby. Both used to extend much farther out, into what is now open water.

He knows many of his neighbors, who weren’t around for Superstorm Sandy or earlier historic storms, don’t share his concerns. But Lewis has seen so much change in his lifetime growing up around Ocean City. He’s raised the height of his concrete dock three times over the past few decades.

“I’m aware of it,” he said. “People that aren’t have got their head in the sand.”

He knows that so far, he has been lucky to stay above the waters that surround his home. While other houses have flooded, his is protected by a wall of stone and asphalt he built decades ago.

“We haven’t had a storm yet that’s breached it,” Lewis said. “But we probably will.”

Climate Change: Ready or Not is an occasional series examining Maryland’s readiness and adaptations to climate change by Baltimore Sun reporter Scott Dance, funded in part by the Abrams Nieman Fellowship for Local Investigative Journalism at Harvard University.

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