New flood insurance maps are coming

Jun. 15--About a decade after local parishes appealed draft flood insurance maps, officials expect to see another set of working maps from the Federal Emergency Management Agency within the next two months.

These maps will be used in coordination with the FEMA-administered National Flood Insurance Program to set rates and determine which areas are viewed as high-risk, or required to enroll in the program.

The current flood insurance maps for Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes haven't been updated since 1985 and don't account for how factors like the ongoing subsidence or sea level rise have affected the elevation of properties.

Rates have also remained the same since that time, as Congress has repeatedly delayed the effect of the Biggert-Waters Insurance Reform Act of 2012 that would have set the rates according to risk and cause them to skyrocket in the state.

The timing of the release of the preliminary maps coincides with a push in the U.S. House of Representatives to pass a long-term reauthorization of the National Flood Insurance Program that would also include some reform measures.

After the proposed House resolution passed the House Financial Services Committee, Republican Rep. Steve Scalise, who represents southern Terrebonne and Lafourche, has advocated for NFIP reform. But he said the bill didn't include everything he hoped for but includes some affordability measures such as monthly payments and rate protection as well as mitigation and mapping process changes.

"Does this bill include everything that I would like to see in a flood insurance reform bill?" he said in a statement on Wednesday. "No, it doesn't, but this bill is a substantial improvement over current law, and the five million policyholders across the country deserve for their elected officials to do their jobs and stop punting the program for a few weeks and months at a time."

Between 2008 and 2009, levee officials in Terrebonne and Lafourche appealed the Flood Insurance Rate Maps, known as FIRMs, arguing they were scientifically and technically inaccurate by ignoring any protection that the parishes' levee systems could offer.

In the past, FEMA's analysis took a "without levee" approach to mapping the flood risk of an area that didn't meet federal standards, meaning they weren't certified to protect against a 100-year flood. Because none of the parishes' levee systems are accredited, they weren't taken into consideration.

Dwayne Bourgeois, North Lafourche Levee District executive director, who has worked with lawmakers and FEMA on the issue since about 2009, said FEMA's new working maps are expected to recognize the parishes' non-accredited levees.

Terrebonne and Lafourche were two of 25 communities that were part of a pilot program of FEMA's new approach toward non-accredited levees within its Levee Analysis and Mapping Procedures, or LAMP.

Released in 2013, the working maps will come out about six years after FEMA started working with local officials on LAMP.

Under the old approach, Bourgeois said, "you're not only overestimating the flooding risk at some areas, you're underestimating the flooding risk at other areas."

He said Louisiana stands out from most of the country because so many people live on a floodplain. Terrebonne and Lafourche alone have more than twice as many NFIP policies than the state Wisconsin, he added.

That's made it difficult to explain to representatives from other states how steep rises in the cost of flood insurance could have a detrimental effect on the local economy, Bourgeois said.

"Our problem in Louisiana is that we have to live in these flood plains for a reason, and it's so easy for people to think that we can just move away," he said.

Larry Larson, Association of State Floodplain Management director emeritus and senior policy advisor, said the process is designed to give "partial credit" to non-accredited levees, potentially leading to some reduction in cost.

The association is an organization of professionals in the NFIP flood hazard mitigation and floodplain management. The association has advocated for different ways to improve the affordability and effectiveness of the flood insurance program.

While he understood the potential economic ramifications of high insurance rates, Larson said the bottom line when looking at the program is asking who benefits and who pays when floods happen. Currently, the flood insurance program is about $20.5 billion in debt to the taxpayers, despite Congress canceling $16 billion worth of its debt in 2017.

"There are ways to address this and the way to address this is not to ignore it," said Larson.

Larson said the focus should be on safety and limiting the potential loss of life.

"It's really a local problem," he said. "You know you're at risk, and yet you continue to want to keep those people at risk."

He said he believes the focus should be on accurately assessing flood risk and providing more federal money for mitigation, such as elevating houses while keeping insurance affordable. By mitigating the risk, that reduces how many people are repeatedly flooded and file claims, reducing the financial burden on taxpayers.

Bourgeois said the proposed House resolution that is set to go on the floor in the next few weeks includes provisions to create a new zone on the flood maps that recognizes areas protected by non-accredited levees. It will also double the amount of money property owners can receive to mitigate flooding and protect the practice of grandfathering, or allowing rates for properties built at the time of old maps to stay the same.

But there is still more to be done, he said.

"To ask is it better than current law? Yeah, but marginally," said Bourgeois. "But it's better than not having the program."

After the working maps are released to local officials for review, Bourgeois said it will go to FEMA's mapping contractors before final plans are returned.

Staff Writer Halle Parker can be reached at hparker@houmatoday.com or 857-2204. Follow her on Twitter, @_thehalparker.

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