T’bonne, Lafourche seek state’s input on FEMA maps

Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes have received flood insurance rate maps from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but officials from both parishes are asking state agencies to review them.

The maps are used to determine the rates charged by the National Flood Insurance Program, the government program managed by FEMA that provides flood insurance to vulnerable areas in exchange for communities’ meeting building elevation standards.

Coastal Louisiana parishes are having difficulty meeting the elevation requirements, according to a news release issued by the Office of the Parish President in Lafourche.

Officials from Lafourche and Terrebonne attended a Louisiana Recovery Authority meeting in November to ask that agency and the state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority to look at the maps.

The two agencies were formed shortly after hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck Louisiana in 2005.

“They want to see the data to see if it is flawed,” said Lafourche Parish President Charlotte Randolph.

“FEMA took an extremely conservative approach” when developing the maps, said Terrebonne Parish Manager Pat Gordon.

“If you use more historical data, then the elevations come down,” he said.

Gordon said Terrebonne has joined informally with Lafourche and other coastal parishes to hold off adopting the maps until they can be reviewed.

“As I began to discuss this issue with other parish leaders, I realized this situation is not unique to us; others were experiencing the same problems,” Randolph said in a release. “We went to the state for help for all of us.”

The maps do not include the South Lafourche levee system because FEMA does not consider them sufficiently high, Randolph said.

Before parishes can adopt the maps, FEMA is required to hold open house meetings for the public to view the maps and to advertise them in a local newspaper.

Lafourche and Terrebonne have not completed either of the two processes.

Lafourche received the maps three weeks ago, but they were viewed informally by parish officials before then, Randolph said.

Terrebonne received the maps in August. FEMA set up a Sept. 17 open house date at the Houma-Terrebonne Civic Center for viewing, but hurricanes Gustav and Ike canceled the event.

Parishes have 90 days to submit any appeals to FEMA about the maps after they are advertised in the parish journal.

“It’s a short span of time,” Gordon said. “After the close of the period, they (FEMA) have to resolve the issue. They can’t just pass the maps. It could take more than a year.”

In August, Gordon said the Advisory Base Flood Elevation maps issued previously by FEMA for Terrebonne Parish showed 2-to 4-foot differences in the elevations required by the new maps.

Figures from FEMA’s Louisiana Mapping Project show that 18,127 flood insurance policies were effective in 2007 in Terrebonne, with annual premiums of $7.7 million providing $3.2 billion in coverage.

Before the arrival of the new maps, the last effective flood maps for Terrebonne had been issued in the 1990s. FEMA began the process of creating new maps in 2003. The process was delayed by the hurricanes of 2005.