Metro Council to adopt most recent floodplain data

The Metro Council is in the process of adopting the Federal Emergency Management Agency's revised Flood Insurance Study for the Nashville Metro area.

Last week, the council passed on first reading an ordinance to adopt the revised Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM). The Metro Planning Commission previously approved the FIRM and, with the council's Planning and Zoning Committee and Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to review it before the bill's second council reading.

Sonia Allman, manager of strategic communications for Metro Water Services, told the Post about 4,000 properties are affected by the new FIRM data. Those property owners should be receiving letters later this month with written notice that they will be included for the first time in the 100-year floodplain (or floodway). However, the data itself is not brand new.

"For the past two years, anyone that was wanting to develop or that looked at our parcel viewer [website], this was the information that they were seeing," Allman said. "What's been available online for the past two years, it was a different color. We actually showed that it was pending."

The map online (at FEMA's map service center and Metro's parcel viewer) will still show the pending locations at this time because the new study will not be effective until June, assuming it's adopted by council. However, Allman said Metro always uses the most recent map, even if it's pending when looking at development.

"It would be very poor planning and management on our end to say, 'We know that the new maps show that this area is in a floodway — it's not official yet — so, we're gonna go ahead and let someone build there,'" Allman said. "We always use the best available data, even before it has become 'quote' official. That's why we put that information out there to give people that information before it's even effective."

FEMA works with infrastructure consultant AECOM and several agencies including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Metro Water Services to gather the data for the flood insurance study.

"This has been going on for several years to gather the data, but they're really getting more detailed information and more importantly data on previously unstudied areas — areas that they just had not studied that far up at the creek or up the small branch," Allman said. "That's what these 18 maps are really focusing on."

There is sometimes confusion about the updated data, she said and reiterated Metro is not the one making the decision about a property but rather likened the new maps to a diagnosis for what is already happening on a property.

"We are not putting anyone in a floodplain," Allman said. "We are making available the data."

It's important for property owners to review the data for their home and surrounding areas to know if flooding is a possibility nearby, Allman said. Metro participates in the National Flood Insurance Program, meaning all residents are eligible for FEMA-backed flood insurance. Additionally, Metro is recognized by FEMA's Community Rating System, which recognizes floodplain management activities that exceeds minimum NFIP standards. Because of Metro's ranking in that program, all flood insurance policyholders can get a 10 percent discount.

"I think it's important for people to know when you're looking at property or buying a house to know what that risk is," Allman said. "You don't have to be in a floodplain to flood. We've had so many people say 'Yeah, but I looked at the map and my neighbor's in a floodplain but I'm not.' [But] floodwaters don't necessarily follow those exact boundaries or lines. So, knowing that you're near a floodplain is really useful information."