News

Nancy Schneider learns that her Delray Beach condo is now considered in a flood zone.

Judy Kraft is one of the few whose Briny Breezes property

has been given a more favorable flood rating.

Photos by Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Jane Smith
    
    When FEMA held an open house at the Boynton Beach City Library, the event was supposed to start at 4 p.m. But when the doors to the conference room opened at 3:15 p.m., a flood of coastal residents surged in.
    They wanted to know how the proposed flood map changes would affect their insurance rates, an important factor for anyone with a home mortgage.
    The Federal Emergency Management Agency registered residents and gave each person a ticket to keep until that number was called. The first stop: a row of FEMA contractors sitting behind computer screens. The contractors were able to look up the residents’ properties and flood insurance rating.
    Some, like Judy Kraft of Briny Breezes, received good news at the September open house. Her trailer sits on a coral reef, allowing her flood zone to be downgraded. Others in the trailer park sit on soggy ground, she said.
    “I’m happy,” she said. Although because Briny Breezes property owners also are shareholders, she feels responsible for the whole park. “It’s not an individual thing,” she said. “The (insurance) rates affect the values and the rental rates of the park.”
    Others, such as Nancy Schneider of Delray Beach, received unpleasant news.
    Under the old elevation standards from 1929, her Patio Beach condo building was not in a flood zone. But FEMA redid the elevation standards in 1988 to make them equitable for any property in the 48 contiguous states. As a result, Schneider’s condo is now in a flood zone.
    She wasn’t surprised. In February she had heard the standards might be changing. The proposed change forced her to find a surveyor who would note the elevation of her building. She needed it to be at least 6 feet above sea level, according to 1988 standards. It was 4.75 feet, she said, after the survey was done. “We can’t raise it (the building) because it’s built on a slab,” Schneider said.
    FEMA officials also were available to help residents figure out changes needed to avoid a premium increase.
    Town managers and city engineers also were there to provide more information about drainage improvements and other steps they were taking to help residents.
    In addition, employees of AECOM, a FEMA contractor, were ready to talk about the recently started coastal study to update the one done in 1996.
    The study, expected to be ready in four to five years, is analyzing wave heights and surges, topographic maps, effects of sea walls and previous hurricane information (landfalls, wind speeds, rain amounts, etc.) along the Eastern Seaboard and Gulf Coast. The analysis alone is expected to take 18 months, said Mark Vieira, senior civil engineer for FEMA’s Region IV, which includes Florida.
    Meanwhile, FEMA is updating its flood maps for Palm Beach County for the first time in about 30 years. It released preliminary maps last year that set off a tidal wave of responses, mostly from the western communities that were placed in high-risk flood areas.
    Manalapan and Highland Beach did not see much change between the maps released in August and the current ones. Delray Beach and Lantana also did not see many changes for their properties near the ocean or Intracoastal Waterway.
    Other coastal communities are still trying to figure out what FEMA did.
    “They’ve changed all the categories,” said Ken Schenck, Ocean Ridge town manager. “They are supposed to advertise it (the maps) in the Federal Register in November. From that point we will have 90 days to comment. The lines between the properties are so faint that it is hard to tell in which flood zone a property lies.”
    In the spring, Ocean Ridge had appealed proposed changes in the maps released in 2013 because they excluded only 140 properties from the high-risk flood zone when the town spent $10 million to improve drainage in its south end. Schenck was hoping for an additional 50-100 properties to be excluded. He had said FEMA categorized a property as in a high-risk flood zone when only a corner of the property was in it.
    “That information we submitted about drainage work done in the south end will be used in their coastal study to be released in 2019,” he said.
    Gulf Stream did not see any major changes to its flood zones, Town Manager William Thrasher said. He is concerned about the change to the elevation standards that FEMA is now using. “We will have to change our building code, based on 6 feet NAVD (the new standard),” he said.
    Boca Raton is still waiting to hear from its GIS staff about the proposed flood maps and how they compare to the current ones. “Then we will do an analysis to determine whether we will do a city appeal or have the individual property owners submit letters (of map change),” said Keith Carney, senior zoning officer.
    FEMA revises its flood maps continually.
    Big payouts after Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy put the National Flood Insurance Program $24 billion in debt. Congress passed the Biggert-Waters Act in 2012 to help bring the flood insurance policies in line with the true risk. Homeowners living in high-risk zones would have seen policy premium increases as high as 25 percent until their policy premium reached full flood rates.
    In the spring, rate relief went into effect for primary homeowners. Increases for flood insurance premiums were capped at 18 percent, although no relief was given to second home and business owners who can be charged as much as a 25 percent increase.
    FEMA has 7,730 flood insurance policies in six South County coastal communities that lie entirely on the barrier island. Of those policies, 77.3 percent are in a high-risk flood zone, said its spokeswoman, Margaret “Jody” Cottrill. FEMA figures are for the whole towns, she said.
    In November, FEMA hopes to publish the county flood maps in the Federal Register, Vieira of FEMA said. Then the agency would buy two legal notices, alerting the public that the 90-day comment period is open.
    The number and complexity of the comments will determine how soon FEMA can sign off on the maps, Cottrill said. She did not want to speculate, but that change could be coming as early as the summer of 2015.