State wants flexibility in using new flood maps
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The state wants to work with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to develop some flexibility on how and when newly developed flood maps would go into effect in coastal Louisiana.
The 100-year flood maps from FEMA show potential flood-prone areas and affect building heights and other restrictions for flood insurance protection.
Normally, once new maps are presented, parish officials have a limited amount of time to either accept or reject the flood elevations depicted in the maps, said Jerome Zeringue, director of planning and programs with the Governor’s Office of Coastal Activities.
In a presentation to the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority meeting Wednesday, Zeringue said the state would like to see the “yes or no” option of accepting new flood maps changed to allow some flexibility, as has been done in other areas of the country.
The Governor’s Office of Coastal Activities is talking with the Louisiana Recovery Authority and FEMA to determine if there are options that would allow coastal communities to phase in flood mitigation measures like raising homes or building levees.
Windell Curole, member of the CPRA and director of levee districts in Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes, wants the state to take another look at the computer model assumptions used to develop the maps.
“There’s nothing wrong with having higher levels of protection,” Curole said; experiences from Hurricane Katrina may have made that 100-year level of protection too stringent.
A 100-year storm is one that has a 1 percent chance in any given year to occur.
Computer models used to generate the flood maps depend on certain assumptions, Curole said. “What we want are assumptions made from our perspective,” Curole said.
That’s something Cameron Parish is in the process of doing in preparation for its updated flood maps, said Tina Horn, Cameron Parish administrator,
Cameron Parish had already gone through a challenge of the 1985 flood maps and succeeded in getting some of the flood elevations lowered, she said.
Now, they’re getting ready to do that again as new maps are expected to classify much of the parish as high flood risk, she said.
The 100-year flood maps from FEMA show potential flood-prone areas and affect building heights and other restrictions for flood insurance protection.
Normally, once new maps are presented, parish officials have a limited amount of time to either accept or reject the flood elevations depicted in the maps, said Jerome Zeringue, director of planning and programs with the Governor’s Office of Coastal Activities.
In a presentation to the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority meeting Wednesday, Zeringue said the state would like to see the “yes or no” option of accepting new flood maps changed to allow some flexibility, as has been done in other areas of the country.
The Governor’s Office of Coastal Activities is talking with the Louisiana Recovery Authority and FEMA to determine if there are options that would allow coastal communities to phase in flood mitigation measures like raising homes or building levees.
Windell Curole, member of the CPRA and director of levee districts in Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes, wants the state to take another look at the computer model assumptions used to develop the maps.
“There’s nothing wrong with having higher levels of protection,” Curole said; experiences from Hurricane Katrina may have made that 100-year level of protection too stringent.
A 100-year storm is one that has a 1 percent chance in any given year to occur.
Computer models used to generate the flood maps depend on certain assumptions, Curole said. “What we want are assumptions made from our perspective,” Curole said.
That’s something Cameron Parish is in the process of doing in preparation for its updated flood maps, said Tina Horn, Cameron Parish administrator,
Cameron Parish had already gone through a challenge of the 1985 flood maps and succeeded in getting some of the flood elevations lowered, she said.
Now, they’re getting ready to do that again as new maps are expected to classify much of the parish as high flood risk, she said.
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