FEMA redraws Yolo flood maps: Thousands may have to buy insurance
More than 50,000 Yolo County residents could find themselves shelling out upwards of $1,000 next year on flood insurance. Potential first-time buyers include the entire population of West Sacramento, Knights Landing, Yolo, Clarksburg and a third of El Macero.The Federal Emergency Management Agency is updating the county’s flood maps, which determine where there’s a one percent chance of flooding in any given year. The so-called 100-year flood is the threshold many banks use when requiring homeowners to purchase government-backed flood insurance. FEMA delivered draft maps in December to local planning departments. A three-month public comment period extends to late May or early June. Based on public input, FEMA will issue final versions around August. Six months later the maps will take effect.
Yolo County lies in a natural floodplain. Flood zones already run along the Colusa Basin Drain near Dunnigan and Knights Landing, Cache Creek (including north Woodland), and the Sacramento River (including the Yolo Bypass) The current flood zone stops at the western levee along the Yolo Bypass.
Under the new maps, that flood zone would stretch westward to include thousands of acres currently outside the floodplain.
Nothing has happened to the integrity of the levees, said Will Marshall, an assistant city engineer for the city of Davis. ‘This doesn’t mean the levees aren’t going to hold water back.’ After Hurricane Katrina and the 2005 levee failures in New Orleans, FEMA decided to enforce quality standards established in 1986, Marshall said. Yolo County’s 215-mile levee system is controlled by a hodgepodge of owners ranging from the state Department of Water Resources to private landowners. ‘FEMA told the owners, ‘If you don’t certify the levees to the 1986 standards, we’re going to pretend the levees aren’t there … If you can’t demonstrate that it’s a good assumption that they can withstand the one-percent event, we’re going to assume they can’t,’ ‘ Marshall said. None of the owners certified their levees.
The quality of the levees hasn’t changed, but tens of thousands of people will have to buy flood insurance come spring 2010. Marshall estimated about 100 homes in El Macero would fall in the new flood zone. That could cost them as much as $2,721, said Duff Devine, a local agent who deals in flood insurance.
Devine crunched some numbers on a few El Macero homes that would fall in the new flood zone. Right now they could buy flood insurance for $348 a year as part of a ‘preferred risk’ policy. That number could skyrocket eight fold to $2,721 if the draft maps still include El Macero when they take effect.
‘It’s huge,’ Devine said. ‘That’s the biggest premium I’ve ever seen in my time doing this. Devine questioned the numbers - which he stressed were only hypothetical - saying homeowners typically see premiums jump three or four times. Residents could avoid higher costs by purchasing flood insurance before the maps take effect, said Eric Simmons, the FEMA engineer for Yolo County. The lower cost would be grandfathered in even after they fall in a high hazard zone. ‘The idea is to reward loyal policy holders,’ Simmons continued.
Buying flood insurance is a good idea even without the flood maps, said Mark Cocke, Woodland’s senior civil engineer. ‘People make the assumption that they’re protected because they see a levee,’ Cocke said. ‘But every levee is going to have an event that exceeds its design capacity, and when that happens, bad things are going to happen. ‘Every levee has a failure point,’ he added, ‘and people need to know that.’
