Necessity for flood insurance lessens
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Bryce Alderton
Fewer property owners in Huntington Beach will be required to pay
flood insurance.
That is, if no appeals are made in the next 90 days to changes that
the Federal Emergency Management Agency made to the flood insurance rate
map for Huntington Beach. The changes alter the boundaries of the area
considered a flood hazard zone in the southwest section of the city,
effectively reducing the number of property owners required to pay flood
insurance.
The areas targeted for change are a section surrounding Adams and
Yorktown avenues and an area south of Adams Avenue that runs toward the
beach.
If no appeals are filed by Feb. 13 the map will take effect.
“The map takes 75% or more of the people out of the flood plain,” said
FEMA engineer Ray Lenaburg.
The agency and the city worked together on the new map for nine months
to establish base flood elevations for structures considered in the flood
hazard zone, an area that encompasses Garfield Avenue south toward the
beach, and from the Santa Ana River west to Beach Boulevard.
A base flood elevation calculates the amount of flooding that would
occur if a flood control channel overflows, in what is termed a 100-year
flood.
“A 100-year flood zone means there’s a 1% chance of a flood happening
in any given year,” said Huntington Beach associate planner Susan Pierce.
For example, if a structure’s ground elevation is three feet and the
flood elevation is six feet, then the structure could potentially have
three feet of flooding in a major flooding event.
The city insisted that base flood elevations be established.”We had a
lot of concern as to why some properties still had to stay in the flood
zone,” Pierce said. “Parts of Huntington Beach in the [flood hazard] zone
had no flood elevations determined. We were very insistent that [the
agency] establish base flood elevations. But it’s a good map given the
circumstances and influence from the ocean.”
If more data becomes available, the agency will design new maps.
“The mapping is like a referee. It identifies where the high-risk
areas are and can be changed if anybody brings new scientific data to
bear,” said Jack Eldridge, FEMA flood plain management chief for Region 9
in San Francisco. “We just map and show what the high-risk areas are.
People can send us more information and we’ll adjust the maps.”
The reduction in the flood plain takes into account flooding impacts
from the Talbert and Huntington Beach flood control channels.
Residents and business owners in the flood-hazard zone are required to
have flood insurance as long as they have a mortgage or take out a loan.
Improvements made to the Santa Ana River Channel by the county in the
last two decades allowed for the reduction in the flood plain map.
The county will continue to work on widening the channels, allowing
them to handle floods.
“The target date for completing construction on these channels is five
to seven years assuming there are no El Ninos,” said county engineer Sara
Bavan. “The flood plain would be further reduced at that time and maybe
even eliminated.”
The agency issued a map revision last January that removed portions of
Fountain Valley from a flood area because improvements had been made or a
project was underway on the Santa Ana River Channel to reduce the chance
of flooding.
But just because an area has been taken out of a flood zone doesn’t
mean a flood couldn’t occur there.
“You could still have water spilling out of a channel, storm drains
could plug up, there could be inadequate levy capacities,” Lenaburg said.
“When we do these maps, everything is assumed to be in working
condition.”
In fact, a third of the insurance claims Eldridge receives are from
buildings that lie outside flood hazard areas.
Residents and business owners in the flood zone can take advantage of
the 90-day grace period by purchasing flood insurance at a lower rate.
The rate depends on the amount of coverage one gets, if the property
owner wants to charge for flood insurance, and or if someone takes out a
loan.
The public is invited to a public forum from 3 to 5 p.m. Thursday Nov.
8, where it can view maps and have questions answered by representatives
from the agency and the city.
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