Posted on Jul\u00a022,\u00a02013<\/h4>\n\n<\/p>\nBy Theodoric Meyer, ProPublica<\/b><\/p>\n
This report was first published on ProPublica<\/a>.<\/b><\/p>\nWhen Donna Edgar found out that new flood maps from the Federal Emergency Management Agency would place her house in a high-risk flood zone, she couldn\u2019t believe it.<\/p>\n
Her home, on the ranch she and her husband own in Texas hill country about 60 miles north of Austin, sits well back from the nearby Lampasas River.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer house is on a hill,\u201d said Herb Darling, the director of environmental services for Burnet County, where Edgar lives. \u201cThere\u2019s no way it\u2019s going to flood.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet the maps, released last year, placed the Edgars in what FEMA calls a \u201cspecial flood hazard area.\u201d Homeowners in such areas are often required, and always encouraged, to buy federal flood insurance, which the Edgars did.<\/p>\n
FEMA eventually admitted the maps were wrong. But it took Edgar half a dozen engineers (many of whom volunteered their time), almost $1,000 of her own money and what she called an \u201cungodly number of hours\u201d of research and phone calls over the course of a year to prove it.<\/p>\n
Edgars is far from alone.<\/p>\n
From Maine to Oregon, local floodplain managers say FEMA\u2019s recent flood maps \u2013 which dictate the premiums that 5.5 million Americans pay for flood insurance<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 have often been built using outdated, inaccurate data. Homeowners, in turn, have to bear the cost of fixing FEMA\u2019s mistakes.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s been a mess,\u201d Darling said. \u201cIt\u2019s been a headache for a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joseph Young, Maine\u2019s floodplain mapping coordinator, said his office gets calls \u201calmost on a daily basis\u201d from homeowners who say they\u2019ve been mapped in high-risk flood areas in error. More often than not, he said, their complaints have merit. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people who have a new map that\u2019s unreliable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Maps built with out-of-date data can also result in homeowners at risk of flooding not knowing the threat they face.<\/p>\n
FEMA is currently finalizing new maps for Fargo, N.D., yet the maps don\u2019t include any recent flood data, said April Walker, the city engineer, including from when the Red River overran its banks in 1997, 2009 and 2011. Those floods were the worst in Fargo\u2019s history<\/a>.<\/p>\nFargo has more recent data, Walker said, but FEMA hasn\u2019t incorporated it.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s unclear exactly how many new maps FEMA has issued in recent years are at least partly based on older data. While FEMA\u2019s website allows anybody to look-up flood maps<\/a>\u00a0for their areas, the agency\u2019s maps don\u2019t show the age of the underlying data.<\/p>\nFEMA\u2019s director of risk analysis, Doug Bellomo, said it was \u201cvery rare\u201d for the agency to digitize the old paper flood maps without updating some of the data. \u201cWe really don\u2019t go down the road\u201d of simply digitizing old maps, he said.<\/p>\n
FEMA did not respond to questions about the maps for Fargo or other specific areas.<\/p>\n
State and local floodplain officials pointed to examples where FEMA had issued new maps based at least in part on outdated data. The reason, they said, wasn\u2019t complicated.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot enough funding, pure and simple,\u201d Young said.<\/p>\n
Using new technology, FEMA today is able to gather far more accurate elevation data than it could in the 1970s and 1980s, when most of the old flood maps were made. Lidar, in which airplanes map terrain by firing laser pulses at the ground, can provide data that\u2019s 10 times more accurate than the old methods.<\/p>\n
Lidar is also expensive. Yet as we\u2019ve reported, Congress, with the support of the White House, has actually cut map funding<\/a>\u00a0by more than half since 2010, from $221 million down to $100 million this year.<\/p>\nWith limited funding, FEMA has concentrated on updating maps for the populated areas along the coasts. In rural areas, \u201cit\u2019s sort of a necessary evil to reissue maps with older data on them,\u201d said Sally McConkey, an engineer with the Illinois State Water Survey at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which has a contract with FEMA to produce flood maps in the state.<\/p>\n
When old maps are digitized, mapmakers try to match up road intersections visible on them with the ones seen in modern satellite imagery (similar to what you can see using Google Earth). But the old maps and the new imagery don\u2019t always line up correctly, leading to what Alan R. Lulloff, the science services program director with the Association of State Floodplain Managers, called a \u201cwarping\u201d effect.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can show areas that are actually on high ground as being in the flood hazard area when they\u2019re not,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s the biggest problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
When FEMA issued new maps last year for Livingston Parish in Louisiana, near Baton Rouge, they included new elevation data. But the flood studies, said Eddie Aydell III, the chief engineer with Alvin Fairburn<\/a>\u00a0in Denham Springs, La., who examined the maps, were \u201ca conglomeration of many different ancient engineering studies\u201d dating from the 1980s to 2001. The mapmakers did not match up the new elevation data with the older data correctly, he said, making structures in the parish seem lower than they really are.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a nightmare for the residents of our parish,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Bonnie Marston\u2019s parents, Jim and Glynda Childs, moved to Andover, Maine, where Marston lives with her husband, in 2010 with the intention of building a house. But when they applied for a loan the bank told them that FEMA\u2019s new flood maps for the county, issued the year before, had placed the land on which they planned to build in a special flood hazard area. The cost: a $3,200 annual flood insurance bill, which the Childs had to pay upfront.<\/p>\n
Marston spent about $1,400 to hire a surveyor, who concluded her parents did not belong in a special flood hazard area. FEMA eventually removed the requirement for them to buy flood insurance \u2013 though it didn\u2019t actually update the map. The bank refunded the flood insurance premium, but Marston said FEMA wouldn\u2019t refund the cost of the survey.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my mind it\u2019s a huge rip-off,\u201d Marston said.<\/p>\n
Edgar, 68, a retired IBM software developer, said she couldn\u2019t understand why FEMA thought her house was suddenly at risk of flooding. When she called FEMA and asked, she said the agency couldn\u2019t tell her.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey just said, \u2018You need to buy flood insurance,\u2019\u201d she said, and told her she could apply for what\u2019s known as a letter of map amendment if she thought she\u2019d been mapped into a special flood hazard area in error. She worried that being in a high-risk flood area would diminish the value of her home.<\/p>\n
Her husband, Thomas, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, knew David R. Maidment, a civil engineering professor there who is an expert on flood insurance mapping. While she hired a surveyor and wrangled with FEMA, Maidment and several of his Ph.D. students drove up to the ranch to study it as a class project.<\/p>\n
The experience, Maidment said, showed him \u201cin a very small microcosm\u201d the importance of using up-to-date elevation data in new maps. The Texas state government paid to map Burnet County, where the Edgars\u2019 ranch is located, in 2011 using lidar. But FEMA\u2019s new maps for the county don\u2019t include the lidar data.<\/p>\n
FEMA removed the Edgars from the special flood hazard area in March, but again it hasn\u2019t actually changed the maps. Letters of map amendment acknowledge that FEMA\u2019s maps were incorrect without actually changing them. While the Edgars don\u2019t have to buy flood insurance, the new, inaccurate maps remain.<\/p>\n
Darling, the county\u2019s director of environmental services, said he had gotten calls from dozens of homeowners with similar complaints about the new flood maps.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve still got \u2018em coming in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The contractor that created the new maps appeared to have taken shortcuts in drawing them, Darling said. Without new lidar data, he added, issuing a new map is \u201cjust a waste of money.\u201d<\/p>\n
The experience, Edgar said, had left her feeling deeply frustrated, as a both homeowner and a taxpayer. FEMA hasn\u2019t reimbursed her for the surveying costs or for the flood insurance premium she and her husband paid. \u201cIt falls to the homeowner to hire a professional engineer and pay\u201d hundreds, even thousands, \u201cto disprove what I would call their shoddy work,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s fair.\u201d<\/p>\n
Have you experienced problems with FEMA\u2019s flood maps firsthand? Let us know<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.truthdig.com\/images\/eartothegrounduploads\/femafloodmap300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
msc.fema.gov<\/p>\n
FEMA\u2019s flood map\n<\/p>\n
<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
By Theodoric Meyer, ProPublica<\/b><\/p>\n
This report was first published on ProPublica<\/a>.<\/b><\/p>\n When Donna Edgar found out that new flood maps from the Federal Emergency Management Agency would place her house in a high-risk flood zone, she couldn\u2019t believe it.<\/p>\n Her home, on the ranch she and her husband own in Texas hill country about 60 miles north of Austin, sits well back from the nearby Lampasas River.<\/p>\n \u201cHer house is on a hill,\u201d said Herb Darling, the director of environmental services for Burnet County, where Edgar lives. \u201cThere\u2019s no way it\u2019s going to flood.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet the maps, released last year, placed the Edgars in what FEMA calls a \u201cspecial flood hazard area.\u201d Homeowners in such areas are often required, and always encouraged, to buy federal flood insurance, which the Edgars did.<\/p>\n FEMA eventually admitted the maps were wrong. But it took Edgar half a dozen engineers (many of whom volunteered their time), almost $1,000 of her own money and what she called an \u201cungodly number of hours\u201d of research and phone calls over the course of a year to prove it.<\/p>\n Edgars is far from alone.<\/p>\n From Maine to Oregon, local floodplain managers say FEMA\u2019s recent flood maps \u2013 which dictate the premiums that 5.5 million Americans pay for flood insurance<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 have often been built using outdated, inaccurate data. Homeowners, in turn, have to bear the cost of fixing FEMA\u2019s mistakes.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been a mess,\u201d Darling said. \u201cIt\u2019s been a headache for a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n Joseph Young, Maine\u2019s floodplain mapping coordinator, said his office gets calls \u201calmost on a daily basis\u201d from homeowners who say they\u2019ve been mapped in high-risk flood areas in error. More often than not, he said, their complaints have merit. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people who have a new map that\u2019s unreliable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Maps built with out-of-date data can also result in homeowners at risk of flooding not knowing the threat they face.<\/p>\n FEMA is currently finalizing new maps for Fargo, N.D., yet the maps don\u2019t include any recent flood data, said April Walker, the city engineer, including from when the Red River overran its banks in 1997, 2009 and 2011. Those floods were the worst in Fargo\u2019s history<\/a>.<\/p>\n Fargo has more recent data, Walker said, but FEMA hasn\u2019t incorporated it.<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear exactly how many new maps FEMA has issued in recent years are at least partly based on older data. While FEMA\u2019s website allows anybody to look-up flood maps<\/a>\u00a0for their areas, the agency\u2019s maps don\u2019t show the age of the underlying data.<\/p>\n FEMA\u2019s director of risk analysis, Doug Bellomo, said it was \u201cvery rare\u201d for the agency to digitize the old paper flood maps without updating some of the data. \u201cWe really don\u2019t go down the road\u201d of simply digitizing old maps, he said.<\/p>\n FEMA did not respond to questions about the maps for Fargo or other specific areas.<\/p>\n State and local floodplain officials pointed to examples where FEMA had issued new maps based at least in part on outdated data. The reason, they said, wasn\u2019t complicated.<\/p>\n \u201cNot enough funding, pure and simple,\u201d Young said.<\/p>\n Using new technology, FEMA today is able to gather far more accurate elevation data than it could in the 1970s and 1980s, when most of the old flood maps were made. Lidar, in which airplanes map terrain by firing laser pulses at the ground, can provide data that\u2019s 10 times more accurate than the old methods.<\/p>\n Lidar is also expensive. Yet as we\u2019ve reported, Congress, with the support of the White House, has actually cut map funding<\/a>\u00a0by more than half since 2010, from $221 million down to $100 million this year.<\/p>\n With limited funding, FEMA has concentrated on updating maps for the populated areas along the coasts. In rural areas, \u201cit\u2019s sort of a necessary evil to reissue maps with older data on them,\u201d said Sally McConkey, an engineer with the Illinois State Water Survey at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which has a contract with FEMA to produce flood maps in the state.<\/p>\n When old maps are digitized, mapmakers try to match up road intersections visible on them with the ones seen in modern satellite imagery (similar to what you can see using Google Earth). But the old maps and the new imagery don\u2019t always line up correctly, leading to what Alan R. Lulloff, the science services program director with the Association of State Floodplain Managers, called a \u201cwarping\u201d effect.<\/p>\n \u201cIt can show areas that are actually on high ground as being in the flood hazard area when they\u2019re not,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s the biggest problem.\u201d<\/p>\n When FEMA issued new maps last year for Livingston Parish in Louisiana, near Baton Rouge, they included new elevation data. But the flood studies, said Eddie Aydell III, the chief engineer with Alvin Fairburn<\/a>\u00a0in Denham Springs, La., who examined the maps, were \u201ca conglomeration of many different ancient engineering studies\u201d dating from the 1980s to 2001. The mapmakers did not match up the new elevation data with the older data correctly, he said, making structures in the parish seem lower than they really are.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a nightmare for the residents of our parish,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Bonnie Marston\u2019s parents, Jim and Glynda Childs, moved to Andover, Maine, where Marston lives with her husband, in 2010 with the intention of building a house. But when they applied for a loan the bank told them that FEMA\u2019s new flood maps for the county, issued the year before, had placed the land on which they planned to build in a special flood hazard area. The cost: a $3,200 annual flood insurance bill, which the Childs had to pay upfront.<\/p>\n Marston spent about $1,400 to hire a surveyor, who concluded her parents did not belong in a special flood hazard area. FEMA eventually removed the requirement for them to buy flood insurance \u2013 though it didn\u2019t actually update the map. The bank refunded the flood insurance premium, but Marston said FEMA wouldn\u2019t refund the cost of the survey.<\/p>\n \u201cIn my mind it\u2019s a huge rip-off,\u201d Marston said.<\/p>\n Edgar, 68, a retired IBM software developer, said she couldn\u2019t understand why FEMA thought her house was suddenly at risk of flooding. When she called FEMA and asked, she said the agency couldn\u2019t tell her.<\/p>\n \u201cThey just said, \u2018You need to buy flood insurance,\u2019\u201d she said, and told her she could apply for what\u2019s known as a letter of map amendment if she thought she\u2019d been mapped into a special flood hazard area in error. She worried that being in a high-risk flood area would diminish the value of her home.<\/p>\n Her husband, Thomas, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, knew David R. Maidment, a civil engineering professor there who is an expert on flood insurance mapping. While she hired a surveyor and wrangled with FEMA, Maidment and several of his Ph.D. students drove up to the ranch to study it as a class project.<\/p>\n The experience, Maidment said, showed him \u201cin a very small microcosm\u201d the importance of using up-to-date elevation data in new maps. The Texas state government paid to map Burnet County, where the Edgars\u2019 ranch is located, in 2011 using lidar. But FEMA\u2019s new maps for the county don\u2019t include the lidar data.<\/p>\n FEMA removed the Edgars from the special flood hazard area in March, but again it hasn\u2019t actually changed the maps. Letters of map amendment acknowledge that FEMA\u2019s maps were incorrect without actually changing them. While the Edgars don\u2019t have to buy flood insurance, the new, inaccurate maps remain.<\/p>\n Darling, the county\u2019s director of environmental services, said he had gotten calls from dozens of homeowners with similar complaints about the new flood maps.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve still got \u2018em coming in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The contractor that created the new maps appeared to have taken shortcuts in drawing them, Darling said. Without new lidar data, he added, issuing a new map is \u201cjust a waste of money.\u201d<\/p>\n The experience, Edgar said, had left her feeling deeply frustrated, as a both homeowner and a taxpayer. FEMA hasn\u2019t reimbursed her for the surveying costs or for the flood insurance premium she and her husband paid. \u201cIt falls to the homeowner to hire a professional engineer and pay\u201d hundreds, even thousands, \u201cto disprove what I would call their shoddy work,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s fair.\u201d<\/p>\n Have you experienced problems with FEMA\u2019s flood maps firsthand? Let us know<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n msc.fema.gov<\/p>\n FEMA\u2019s flood map\n<\/p>\n <\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n