My house is roughly 1/4 mile from a small river that leads to the bay and ultimately the Gulf. While it is a small tributary, in the event of a major hurricane the storm surge could push a significant amount of water inland.
With this in mind, before we agreed to purchase our house we looked at the FEMA flood maps. Lo and behold, our house shows up right on the edge in a flood zone (AE, 100 year flood). Not good, we say, no deal. The owner tells us that they have never been required to purchase flood insurance. Strange. We contact our insurer and ask them to check it out with their underwriters. Insurance company comes back and says "You're good, no flood insurance required." Hmm. Note that our property is built on fill that raised the original elevation a good 10 feet or more from the baseline flood elevation of 29 feet, and at the south end of the property there is what is referred to as a "sea wall" to contain the fill. From the top of this wall, which is at ground level for my property, it's a good four to five feet down to the original elevation. Looking at current USGS topo maps and FEMA flood maps, there is nothing that indicates the presence of the fill or sea wall. So I am thinking about this disparity in the records and wondering how I can get it corrected. I can file a LOMA with FEMA to get the change made, but that requires a survey with an elevation certificate. So the other day it occurs to me that I work right next to our GIS guys, so I go over and talk to them. They point me at our flood zone person down in Real Estate. I talk to her. Within minutes she comes back with a LOMA that was filed when the property was developed back in 1998 that exempts my house along with three others from the flood zone. ????? I asked why the maps, while were redone in 2008, don't reflect the development or change in elevation, as any citizen who looked up our property would immediately assume it is in a flood zone? "Oh, they never change the maps, I don't know why. They just issue LOMAs if the property is reclassified." <head slap> How's that for bureaucracy? Dan above the waterline Man Sent from my iPad _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com All posts are the result of individual contributors and as such, those individuals are responsible for the content of the post. The list owner has no control over the content of the messages of each contributor.
