Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission Issues Public Comment on FEMA Notice

WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 -- Kevin Geiger, senior planner at Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission, Woodstock, Vermont, has issued a public comment on the Federal Emergency Management Agency notice entitled "Request for Information on the National Flood Insurance Program's Floodplain Management Standards for Land Management and Use, and an Assessment of the Program's Impact on Threatened and Endangered Species and Their Habitats". The comment was written on Oct. 25, 2021, and posted on Nov. 1, 2021:

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Please find our comments below on changes to the NFIP. These comments are limited to riverine flooding as we do not have coastal areas. We also generally do not have levees.

Flooding is Vermont's principal disaster risk, be it from tropical remnants, summer thunderstorms, spring snowmelt, or winter ice jams. Regulation of land use through the National Flood Insurance Program is the primary means of controlling this flood risk to lives and property. TRORC assists 30 towns in east-central Vermont administer their flood regulations. For several towns, flood regulations are their only form of local land use regulations. Very few of these towns have professional planning staff and none are Certified Flood Managers. These towns, understandably, rely on the FEMA flood maps as the best indicators of their flood risk and the minimum NFIP regulations as a sure-fire way to address this risk. Local officials reasonably ask us, "Why should we regulate more than FEMA does? Surely they know what they are doing." Unfortunately, we have to tell them that you do not. We tell them they need to go beyond the FEMA maps (known as FIRMS) and minimum standards as they do not accurately reflect flood risk, nor provide reasonable protection against flood damage. Municipal officials then have to decide who to trust, us or FEMA. They shouldn't have to, because the maps should show flood risk for the foreseeable future, since they are used in permitting structures that will last generations, and the standards should reasonably ensure that damage will be avoided.

The FIRMS in the region are outdated. Virtually all FEMA maps in the TRORC region were created, or rely on data created, over 40 years ago using topographical methods that could easily be off by up to two feet of elevation. They were also made using historical rainfall data that was sparse. None were made using the actual increased extremes in precipitation over the last 30 years. None take into account the likely further increase in flood risk due to climate change.

Orange County, which makes up almost half of our region, does not have digital flood maps. This makes simply looking on the map to determine if a house is or is not in a Special Flood Hazard Area daunting. Instead, town officials must rely on blurry Firmettes that lack the detail that any child can pull up on their phone. Windsor County communities do have digital flood maps that were produced over a decade ago, but these are largely just the old maps put into a digital format, not a new map or study. A disco tune on Spotify is still disco.

FEMA maps not only use old rainfall data and rough topography, they grow outdated as they assume rivers do not move, whereas lateral erosion is significant in some communities. There are places in the TRORC region where the river itself is outside the FEMA mapped flood zone, creating the obvious dilemma that locations in the river are not officially at flood risk. However, these are the maps that regulations rely on. As we have taken to saying, "the maps are wrong, but they are officially wrong". Several towns in the region also only have "A zone" maps that are notoriously inaccurate and lack basic information such as floodway limits and base flood elevations. These maps are simply a guess, where the width of a pencil line is a significant error, and they require landowners to pay to develop the detail that local flood regulations require.

FEMA must update the rainfall data used to make the flood maps that communities rely on to accurately reflect current and future risk (at least to 2050). This data must then be laid upon the quality topographic data available today (Vermont has highly accurate stateside LIDAR data) to generate new maps. This remapping must cover all of Vermont, and it must happen with haste. Every home built relying on poor data is a future blow to the NFIP insurance fund as well as human tragedy waiting to happen.

Now we come to whether the standards need updating. The short answer is, yes.

As seen above, the maps, and the accompanying base flood elevations are not highly accurate. But they are meant to be used to elevate homes and businesses to an exact height to avoid flood damage. The maps say the 1% chance flood (commonly thought of as the 100-year flood) will only go so high, and one inch above that is safe enough that insurance is not required. As FEMA knows from its own publications, a few inches of water above the first floor can cause significant damage. Even with high quality maps, a safety margin must be in place to be prudent. For this reason, the NFIP minimum standard must be changed to require new construction to be elevated to at least one foot above base flood elevation. The need for this provision of 'freeboard' is obvious to any person who has ever been in a boat. Do you want the edge of the boat at the surface of the water, or with a foot to spare? Floodproofing is not as reliable as elevation, and so, where that is used, the minimum standard must be changed to require buildings to be floodproofed to at least 2 feet above base flood elevation Critical facilities are by their nature critical, and so must be built to have a reasonable expectation that they will never fail, especially since failure in a flood that is causing other damage would compound the local disaster. Having your downtown flood is one thing, having no water supply and sewage treatment as you try to recover is another. For this reason, all critical facilities must be required to be elevated or floodproofed to at least the 0.2% chance flood or the flood of record, whichever is greater.

Floodways are special areas within flood zones that typically carry greater heights and velocities. To distinguish these areas when talking with lay audiences that can easily conflate 'flood fringe', 'flood hazard area', 'floodplain', and 'floodway', we refer to areas mapped as floodway as the 'death zone'. That may be a bit dramatic for FEMA, but some new moniker such as 'Severe Flood Area' is warranted. Building new construction in floodways is just plain stupid, and should prohibited. Where existing buildings already are in the floodway and make improvements, they should be required to be built to the 0.2% chance flood and any improvements should be required to show a 0.0' effect on flood heights.

Vermont recognizes that lateral erosion, versus inundation, is often our greatest flood risk. For this reason, the state has created a statewide 'river corridor' map layer. This does two things - shows lateral erosion risks on larger streams and rivers, and shows a 50' setback from an identifiable set of smaller streams. FEMA's maps don't cover most smaller streams, but these have flood risk. Later erosion is not just an issue in Vermont, and FEMA should work to identify areas at risk of lateral erosion and show these on their maps as well. To begin, a simple nationwide, minimum standard of a 50' horizontal setback for structures from top of bank for all streams would provide an easily understandable standard that would protect against common flooding issues. FEMA could also show official state or local flood risk data (such as Vermont's river corridors) on FIRMs as advisory layers that would add to flood risk awareness. Such additions should not require that states become 'managing states' for the NFIP.

With the above changes, FEMA will take giant steps toward lessening future flood risk. However, existing development poses enormous risk already, and this risk can be lessened. The current efforts to ramp up rates for flood insurance to reflect actual risk are an excellent step. This will create hardships for many, but that simply reflects the hardships to come from floods that would also cause tragedy to residents, risks to responders, and communal financial support from the NFIP.

Properties that are primary residences that flood disastrously once, such that the building is a 100% loss, should be automatically offered a 100% buyout. This buyout offer must be quickly made as owners make decisions about whether to repair or rebuild within days. To do this, FEMA must work to ensure it has personnel in damaged areas as soon as safe, meeting with local regulators and local residents and explaining available options and NFIP requirements. All owners are not created equal, and, for some, even a 100% buyout will not enable them to undertake all the work needed to find comparable safe shelter in their community. For such owners, FEMA must work to develop a program to provide case manager assistance to relocate.

Properties that flood repeatedly are obviously an indication that the map is wrong in that spot (if they are post-FIRM properties), since they would have been built to theoretically be above the base flood. Pre-firm properties that flood repeatedly are understandable, but should have high premiums to reflect that risk. In both cases, those properties that become severe repetitive loss (SRL) properties need to stop being a drain on the NIFP program, a source of trauma for families, a source of pollution to waterways, and a risk to responders in rescues. SRL properties that have cumulative damage exceeding twice the value of the structure and are primary residences should be offered a choice between a 100% buyout, or permanent removal from the NFIP upon the expiration of the current policy and a prohibition on future Individual Assistance benefits. Secondary residences should go to full actuarial rates at the next policy period and be offered a 75% buyout. For owners that choose to stay, the loss of insurance and future benefits must be recorded in the land records. As above, case managers may be needed for some residents. For SRL rental properties where tenants will be displaced, Uniform Relocation Assistance (URA) funding should be provided.

Local hazard mitigation planning can play a critical role in lessening future disaster damage. However, lack of data from FEMA hobbles flood mitigation. Addresses of properties that have had flood insurance payouts and of SRL properties should be supplied to local authorities conducting flood mitigation planning. This data can be delayed and protected so that those receiving payouts are not publicly identified close to the time they receive funds, but to not identify the spots most at risk from a hazard while one is supposed to be working to lessen the damage to spots most at risk from the hazard is self-defeating. Knowledge is power, as the saying goes. And knowledge of past flooding is critical for prospective owners to know. Whether a property is in a flood zone or has received a flood insurance payout should be required to be recorded in land records.

Thank you for your consideration.

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The notice can be viewed at: https://www.regulations.gov/document/FEMA-2021-0024-0001

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