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Michael Heiman / Getty Images file
The corner of 34th Street and 1st Street in Manhattan floods during rains from Hurricane Sandy, Oct. 29, 2012 in New York City.
Some 35,000 buildings and homes have been added to flood zones in parts of New York City, according to preliminary maps released Monday by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. More of these maps will be released in late February for Manhattan and other parts of city where the data is still being analyzed.
The numbers emerged after the release earlier in the day of FEMA’s advisory flood maps for parts of the city, increasing the areas falling into 100-year flood zones or areas with the potential for destructive high speed waves along coastlines, said agency spokesman Dan Watson. More maps will be released for other parts of the city, including Manhattan, in late February, he said.
The official maps will be released in the summer, but the preliminary ones for hard-hit areas like Staten Island and Queens are intended to give those who are rebuilding a head start. Sandy struck Oct. 29, leaving about 20,000 residential buildings in the city with some damage or disruption to their utilities.
“It can inform building back stronger and smarter with the recovery,” Watson said. “And honestly it will also help save lives and property in the future … because we’ve seen areas where folks have elevated or used other forms of mitigation and … they got wet but there wasn’t as much damage as a result of it.”
The maps reflect base flood elevations and will likely increase insurance rates for those who are newly included in the flood-prone zones. Those who are now in the “A Zones” -- or 100-year flood zones, where a flooding event has a one percent probability of occurring in any given year -- and who have a federally-backed mortgage will be required to get flood insurance once the flood maps are formally adopted, Watson said.
Some property owners may also have to elevate their buildings or homes, likely setting ground floors ground floors 3 to 6 feet higher than zoning rules previously required, according to The Associated Press. The maps have to be adopted by communities, which can appeal parts of them, Watson said.
Congress has already passed $9.7 billion in additional borrowing authority for the National Flood Insurance Program to help pay Sandy claims from homeowners in New York and New Jersey. The Senate on Monday night approved a $50.5 billion emergency spending bill to aid people in New York and New Jersey who are trying to rebuild their homes and businesses.
Hard-hit communities were just beginning to figure out what these initial maps mean for them. In Breezy Point, a private cooperative in the city’s southern Queens Borough heavily damaged by the storm, leaders said they needed to study the maps before offering guidance: “Keep in mind that the DOB (Department of Buildings) and City still need to make decisions regarding building criteria and if it will change.”
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While the 'news' contained in the proposed new flood zone maps will be a challenge to current homeowners, the good news is you just might get to make the rebuild or not rebuild decision before all the money is spent. Those of us along the MS Gulf Coast didn't get the new flood zone maps until 2009 - right, that's a 5 years AFTER Hurricane Katrina. And, now the word is that 'grandfathering' is on its way out. Be warry about this. Some of us in the South are looking at 750% to a 1000% increase in rates as the new maps and revised rates begin to kick in in 2014.
Test the impact on your area against what is about to happen in Mississippi. I know I need to pay more than a mere $365 on the max for $250K, but not too keen to take the hit to the $2000 level and above.
Oh, and one more caution. In my neighborhood there are roughly 50 homes close to the waters of the Gulf. Due to Hurricane Katrina, commercial insurance companies (Allstate & State Farm and the rest) have abandoned the Windstorm market and with the Housing bust in 2009 - not one home has sold on the open housing market since Hurricane Katrina. Folks that's over 7.5 years without a home being sold. Over 20 homes up for sale over the last 5 years - none sold. And none took in more that 2ft of water. NONE. Heck, we couldn't leave if we wanted to. Maybe things will be different in NY.
Godspeed.
By re establishing the flood plain it merely forces these particular buildings to require flood insurance added to their already overly inflated policy's costs. and it wont stop there.never does, the insurance company's will bill the hell out of em then should it happen again disappear through one of their various loop holes.
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Yeah, that will do a lot of good, after all its FEMA.......they're really on top of things these days and have such a great track record of success in this field............not.
Just wait to see what the mapmakers will produce for NJ. It will be a much needed reality check.
Sandy-type losses in the NYC-NJ area were predicted in a 2008 report at
.
In AZ during the 1980s there were many flooding losses of homes that encroached on poorly defined floodplains. The new maps were a bitter pill for some, though these kinds of losses have stopped.
I guess that is all FEMA can do, since they don't control the weather.
Christie has already approved the FEMA map for NJ.
The report is at
www dot rms dot com/publications/1938_Great_New_England_Hurricane dot pdf
NY, should start back filling every street and make every ground floor a basement. Enclose all the building fronts, then fill the streets and alley-ways in around it. Raise the entire ground level one floor, everywhere.
Thats the best way to deal with rising sea levels. This problem will only get worse over the next few decades. And building a huge sea wall is expensive, and not totally safe anyway. Back fill is safe and easy. And probably less money. Hell you could even use some garbage as part of the back fill.
Start at the water front and work back.
great idea! Seems as though this (Sandy) is just the beginning for east coast. (And all other points along seas). I hope not, but with a prediction of 3' higher seas by end of the century, maybe 1 floor not enough. We will run out of $ to rebuild at current rate. The sea wall! Cannot imagine the cost, and how effective?
have fun getting insurance now...
Once again we have the howling blood thirsty mobs which become both excited and horrified at executions. If the Roman coliseum or others like it where still in operation today it would be filled to capacity.
Someday medical science will discover what makes people kill and how to cure the human mind before humans commit murder. The people of the future will look at this time period with the same revulsion and disbelief as we do in regards to the Salem Witch trials.
Capital punishment does not deter murder, in fact it often encourages more of it because the would be murder knows that he cannot bring himself to commit suicide but knows that if he commits a murder then the State will then kill him. Its called suicide by State murder.
Amongst poeple who are products of higher education the belief that Capital punishment is wrong is by far in the majority. Western Europe for the most part has done away with it, especially after DNA tests proved how many people were executed that were innocent.
The death penalty is often handed out capriciously based on jury's that are racially, sexually or religiously prejudiced. It is not the crime you commit that gets you executed but how the jury perceives the prisoner to be. If you are female and put on a good show of remorse or helplessness you are far more likely to get life in prison than that of a man. A good example is women killing their own children. Most often they get off with a slap on the wrist. If a man commits the same crime he gets the death penalty. So sex plays a big role in who gets executed and who gets off Scot free.
And so the next execution excites the howling mob who scream for the reinstitution of public executions, and more bread and circus.