Florida’s Double Hurricanes Expose Limit of Federal Flood Maps
Also today: The first museum survey of modernist architect Paul Rudolph, and school turmoil worsens Chicago’s budget strains.
A destroyed church in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene flooding in Swannanoa, North Carolina.
It’s difficult for homebuyers in the US to assess how safe their investments are from flooding when the primary tools for gauging risk are inadequate. The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s flood maps, which determine who is required to buy flood insurance, are woefully outdated and focus on river and coastal inundation — but not on flooding caused by extreme rainfall.
A Bloomberg Green analysis of several areas impacted by Hurricane Helene found discrepancies between FEMA flood maps and where flooding actually occurred, as captured by the company Floodbase. In three cities – Augusta and Valdosta, Georgia, and Greenville, South Carolina– less than half of flooding observed during Helene covered areas federally designated as high-risk zones. FEMA’s plans to modernize its mapping have been slow-going given the need to gather input from every level of government, report Leslie Kaufman and Leonardo Nicoletti. Today on CityLab: Federal Flood Maps Are No Match for Florida’s Double Hurricane