Outdated and Unreliable: FEMA’s Faulty Flood Maps Put Homeowners at Risk
ByWhen Hurricane Harvey ripped through Hitchcock, Texas, in August, it wasn’t just pummeled by nature. The town of 7,300, just across the bay from Galveston, was also the victim of a bad map: The local flood maps managed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency hadn’t been updated since 1983. That made it harder for residents to know if their homes were at risk of flooding—which might explain why fewer than one in four homes had flood insurance in a town that saw severe flooding during the storm.
Hitchcock was no anomaly. FEMA is supposed to review their maps every five years to make sure they still properly indicate flood risk. But that policy hasn’t stopped flood maps created as far back as the 1970s from influencing where people build or if they have flood insurance, and at what rates. When those maps are wrong it leaves taxpayers on the hook if residents, banks or the National Flood Insurance Program need to be bailed out. And it can lead to billions of dollars in losses for uninsured homeowners who didn’t think their house could flood…
Outdated and Unreliable: FEMA’s Faulty Flood Maps Put Homeowners at Risk
