Thursday, August 01, 2013
Government at Work - Designating Flood Zones
At ProPublica.org, Theodoric Meyer informs us about this issue:
"From Maine to Oregon, local floodplain managers say FEMA’s recent flood maps — which dictate the premiums that 5.5 million Americans pay for flood insurance — have often been built using outdated, inaccurate data. Homeowners, in turn, have to bear the cost of fixing FEMA’s mistakes. 'It’s been a mess,' Darling said. 'It’s been a headache for a lot of people.' Joseph Young, Maine’s floodplain mapping coordinator, said his office gets calls “almost on a daily basis” from homeowners who say they’ve been mapped in high-risk flood areas in error. More often than not, he said, their complaints have merit. 'There’s a lot of people who have a new map that’s unreliable,' he said."
