Flood maps stay, for now

Adam Knapp, deputy director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, told the Terrebonne Parish Council at its meeting Wednesday night that the council should not rescind its adoption of the Advisory Base Flood Elevation maps for Terrebonne Parish issued by the federal government.

The LRA is distributing federal money intended to aid recovery from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The ABFE maps are used by the federal government to determine the height of structures required to escape flooding and are crucial to figuring the premiums charged by the National Flood Insurance Program.

The program requires minimum flood elevations for new construction and substantially improved structures, in exchange for subsidized insurance for existing buildings.

The council passed an ordinance adopting the ABFE maps for Terrebonne Parish at its June 28, 2006 meeting.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency made receipt of federal hazard mitigation grant money contingent on use of the ABFE maps for new construction. Adoption of the ABFEs is not mandated by FEMA.

However, the LRA required use of the maps for parishes to receive federal hazard mitigation funds. The LRA wanted to ensure federal money flowed to the state.

The Base Flood Elevation maps in effect when Katrina struck used data from 1984. During 2005, FEMA was in the process of updating the maps using more sophisticated technology, but the process was slowed, Knapp said.

FEMA then issued the ABFEs, which used data taken over a 35-year period, as a temporary measure until permanent federal Flood Insurance Rate Maps could be produced.

The council has considered rescinding its adoption of the maps, in part, because federal money has been slow coming into the parish. Also, some resentment lingers over the LRA’s forcing parishes to approve the maps.

“Only a small percentage of people down the road have gotten money,” said Councilman Harold Lapeyre at the council’s Oct. 24 meeting. “There’s a differential between people down the bayou and up the bayou. Only 17 percent of people have gotten money.”

“The LRA has handled this in an unprofessional way,” he said. “It requires them to elevate, but doesn’t give them enough money. We need to get relief from the LRA.”

Lapeyre questioned whether federal relief money to the state is leaking.

“Money is taken from people who’ve lost homes,” he said. “I’m sick of people privately gaining at the expense of people who’ve lost homes and businesses.”

At the council’s Nov. 14 meeting, Lea Rutter, a construction contractor from Thibodaux, told the council, “My understanding is when FEMA came out, money was available no matter what. FEMA said if you use our money, live by our rules. But the LRA says we must play by the ABFEs.”

Councilman Peter Rhodes urged compliance with the maps.

“Those people have waited a long time” for federal assistance, he said. “I don’t want to put any more obstacles. We’ll lose funding by denying the maps. The maps are the best information you have today, when the flood insurance rate maps come out.”

Prior to meeting with the Terrebonne Parish Council, Knapp told the Lafourche Parish Council at its meeting last Tuesday that the council should not rescind its adoption of the ABFE maps for the parish.

The council passed an ordinance adopting the ABFE maps for Lafourche Parish at its July 6, 2006, meeting.

The council considered rescinding its adoption of the maps just like Terrebonne Parish. The lingering resentment over the LRA forcing parishes to approve the maps led Councilman Mark Atzenhoffer to offer a motion to rescind the maps at last Tuesday’s meeting.

“We offered what could have worked and you said, ‘No,'” Aztenhoffer said to Knapp during the meeting, the “you” being the LRA.

In Lafourche Parish, the council hoped that the preliminary maps would be complete. The long debate over the ABFE maps has put a rip in the parish, according to the councilman.

Researching some of the surrounding area elevations, Atzenhoffer told Knapp people in Kenner – who had nine feet of water in their homes and who only had to elevate three feet – and people near the Mississippi River area only have to build on a slab.

However, in Lafourche Parish, residents had to “kiss the ring,” he said. “Right here in our parish, we have people having to elevate their homes and churches 11 feet. And then we have another area that’s called the swamps that’s not even in a flood zone anymore.”

The council voted not to rescind the maps 2-7, with Atzenhoffer and Tommy Lasseigne voting aye.

Lafourche Parish President Charlotte Randolph said, “We have to do whatever is necessary to protect the citizens of the parish. And if that means retaining the ABFE maps until a definite one comes out, then that’s what we have to do.”

According to Randolph, the hazard mitigation funds give parish citizens 100 percent of their flood losses back. Prior to that it was 75 percent.

Randolph said the LRA gave the guidelines to build upon.

“There are some problems with them, but I think the LRA is a good group of volunteers who are not present at this meeting. They said the maps were a specific guideline for all to follow. There was no way that the LRA could conduct a parish-by-parish survey.”