The Risk Assessments are done from the maps she say's she still supports.
The Maps are a product of Corps of Engineers Hydrology and Hydraulics models and studies.
Models are Models and not gaged data, but generally the models and the studies they're based on are based on sound science. They're not perfect, but they're usually pretty good.
Two things stand out in my memory here:
First is a request years ago to do an elevation certificate for an area that was shown Zone A. The owner insisted with the same passion Ms. Miller does, that the area has never flooded. 6 months later we received a 100 year event. Her basement was half in the resulting flood, just like the maps implied it would have been.....
Second is the North Dakota Red River flooding from about 4 years ago. The Corps went to FEMA and told them that based on their snow melt models, this river was going to flood big-time when the spring thaws, as well as rains, came. FEMA pleaded with property owners to buy flood insurance before disaster struck. Very few did. Locals generally accused FEMA of peddling hysteria. And as we all know now, the floods did come.....
In short, I don't think she knows what she's talking about. Just another passionate politician.....
She hit that pretty squarely on the head, but the maps are the maps. Want to save insurance rate, get it surveyed.
She kept saying her constituents are in areas that rarely or never flood ... well, that's the exact intent of the program. (1) An A zone should, in theory, flood once every 100 years to the BFE, so yes, that's pretty rare. (2) For 40+ years communities have required, generally, that new construction be above the BFE, thus greatly lessing any chance of damage due to flooding.
All the things she's complaining about are, IMO, proof the program works.
But, does she have a point about allowing people to rebuild in flood prone areas after a flood? I'm no expert, but wouldn't FEMA require that new construction/rebuilding be done so that new construction is above the BFE?
One of the problems of creating lower cost flood insurance is that homeowners will be more likely to build in a flood zone, i.e, at the shore, or along a river, knowing that their losses will be protected.
The weather conditions of the past several years (after all, the majority of clients are in Florida, the Gulf Coast and Texas) have led to great expenses for the NFIP.
http://www.policyintegrity.org/documents/FloodingtheMarket.pdf
Once again, we should all keep in mind the whole premise behind "insurance".....spreading the cost of the risk around.
Wiki: "Insurance involves pooling funds from many insured entities (known as exposures) to pay for the losses that some may incur. The insured entities are therefore protected from risk for a fee, with the fee being dependent upon the frequency and severity of the event occurring. In order to be insurable, the risk insured against must meet certain characteristics in order to be an insurable risk. Insurance is a commercial enterprise and a major part of the financial services industry, but individual entities can also self-insure through saving money for possible future losses."
Yes. They certainly should require it. The question is not what the FEMA policy is, it's whether it will be enforced. If the local flood official has little or no training and if the financing institution doesn't question it, improperly permitted uses will continue to occur. When she's talking about Mississippi or Louisiana, I'm guessing these are areas where the local parishes or counties simply don't have the financial resources to monitor and/or enforce the rules. That doesn't mean it's right.
Just an interesting fact.
In the first 30 years of our company, we did 2 Elev Certs.
In the last 8 or so years, quite a few, almost all along the big lakes. It started when the insurence companies started taking hits with the 2-3 big Southern hurricanes. What it looked like to me is they took heavy losses, and were looking to expand their insurence pool. Maybe not, but that is my view.
The premium should reflect the true risk, and should be increased every time a property collects on the insurance.
The reality is that this country was built on and along water sources. Most cities didn't start out in areas where water had to be transported long distances uphill to supply them. Hence, the "valuable" real estate was near water. Since no one wants the value of their property to deteriorate, pressure was put on any so-called authorities to treat waterfront or waterview property as generally more valuable than what it really was. Today, we live in a world of whiners who wish to place the blame for anything negative on "the other guy", whomever that might be.
I can understand her complaint about property owners atop cliffs and dunes being forced to prove they are outside the danger zone when it is clearly obvious to a six year-old that such is the case. I recently dealt with a similar case along a river where the house and all improvements were 50 feet or more above highwater.
> She kept saying her constituents are in areas that rarely or never flood
We hear that a lot around here ("This farm has been in my family for 5 generations, and it's never flooded..."). What this historical perspective fails to account for are changes to the watershed that have created conditions under which water will run off faster, or be forced through a channel narrowed by invasive vegetation, or be obstructed by manmade structures. The floodplain of 50 or 100 years ago may bear little resemblance to the floodplain of today, but convincing people of that -- especially when the presentation is accompanied by the introduction of a cost they've never before had to bear -- can be an uphill battle.
Awfully nice of John to tell us his story................after he rebuilt his house and then sold off the land.
I agree with Bill. What we have now is those who have built and live responsibly financing those who choose to build and live in flood zones. There are many places like mine, that if they ever flood, life as we know it will end. (I am on top of a high ridge. Why does our tax monies finance those who choose to build million dollar homes on the ocean? I don't blame them for building in such places, but I do not like paying for them. Not fair. I have no problem with folks building whatever they like in whatever place they want, but they should pay for their own risk. We work a lot in flood prone areas. We have seen a lot of FEMA maps that are just bad, bad, wrong. We have also seen large scale reconstruction of basically completely destroyed flooded dwellings that should never have been rebuilt.