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The Federal Emergency Management Agency recently submitted its new, proposed Digital Flood Insurance Rate Maps, or DFIRM, to both the city of Fulton and Itawamba County, and neither should be happy with the changes. The new maps indicate a wealth of new areas falling within floodplains, which would likely triple the insurance for those entities within these areas.
For example, buildings that would in some way be negatively impacted by the proposed floodplains mapping include a large portion of Itawamba Community College’s campus, including the Davis Event Center and Sheffield Hall; Tombigbee Electric Power Association; Kline Heating and Cooling; the Itawamba County School District bus shop; all the land above the Access Road, including MDOT, PSP-Monotech, Tri-State Lumber; Hickory Hill; Max Home and the Itawamba County Port. Numerous residential properties will also fall within these new floodplains.
FEMA will be holding a public meeting on May 6 at 4:30 p.m. at the Itawamba County Development Council offices in Fulton to discuss the new maps. The public is strongly encouraged to attend.
“People need to look at these maps and see if they’re going to be affected,” said Greg Deakle, ICDC executive director. He added that while the most prominent changes are in Fulton, many other Itawamba communities are affected as well.
“There’s a floodplain that’s been added in Tremont, there’s a few that have been added in Mantachie, of course, there’s a bunch in Fulton, there’s some south and north of Bull Mountain Creek — everything has been changed and affected in some way or another,” he said. “All of these maps will be available at the tax collector’s office for review, and the cities will have their maps as well at all three city halls. We encourage anyone and everyone to take a look at these maps.”
Deakle said the new flood maps will inevitably result in higher insurance rates for individuals and families who live within these areas.
“If you live near a creek — or in some cases a ditch — it’s very important to look and see,” he said. “If you’re in that floodplain, you’re going to be required to have more flood insurance if you have a mortgage.
“If you live in one of these areas and haven’t ever been flooded, I think FEMA needs to know that,” Deakle said.
Bad business
The new floodplain maps could prove disastrous for both Fulton and Itawamba County, especially the businesses that fall within the new, floodable areas.
Additionally, the changes would have an extremely negative impact on future development in the area. For example, the port would fall within the new flood zones, preventing the county from seeking federal or state aid for new industry looking to build there.
“There is no property available outside of that floodplain for anyone to do anything at the port,” Deakle said. “If there’s going to be a mortgage on the property, if there’s going to be any federal money spent, it can’t be within a floodplain.”
Deakle stabbed a finger onto the port’s location on the new map. It was covered in blue.
“None of the property we have at the port can be developed on that map,” he said.
Water over the bridge
Itawamba County’s fight with FEMA regarding the new DFIRMs began in August of last year, when the federal agency announced its plans to change Itawamba and Monroe counties maps.
In order to combat the proposed changes, the city of Fulton and Itawamba County joined the city of Amory, Monroe County and Three Rivers Planning and Development in a lawsuit against FEMA. The injunction was later dropped in favor of support from the congressional level, in particular Sen. Thad Cochran’s office.
In November, Fulton received news that the Corps of Engineers would certify the east levee, which covers a bulk of the city’s area, including the ICC campus and port; however, FEMA’s new maps show no indication that the area surrounding the east levee has been certified as a flood protected zone.
“According to this map, FEMA is not going to recognize the east levee as certified,” Deakle said, adding that the county is currently working with the Corps of Engineers to alleviate the problem. Although the agency has been very supportive, Deakle said, the effort may not be enough.
In the meantime, however, the county has hired engineering firm Mendrop Wages to look at all of the data and modeling information from FEMA to find out exactly how they determined where the new floodplains should be. Deakle claimed that the new maps are unrealistic and do not take into consideration the area’s history, which has been flood free since the construction of the Tombigbee Waterway.
“We don’t know what they’ve actually gone out, looked at and studied,” Deakle said. “There’s a lot of water that can go through that waterway before it will flood. Then, there are all kinds of escape valves and bypasses and all this other stuff the Corps of Engineers has in place to keep the waterway at a manageable level. It’s not flood controlled, but it’s been very well maintained for 25 years. We don’t know if they took any of that into account at all.”
To further his point, Deakle said the new floodplain maps state that the waters flowing through the waterway would need to reach 272 feet to flood. The highest level recorded ever on the Tombigbee River was in 1965 at 267 feet.
“So, in 55 years it’s never gotten that high, and during that time the waterway was built,” Deakle said. “I’m not an engineer, but it doesn’t make common sense.”
Deakle said he believes that FEMA should take under consideration the history of the waterway. He hopes that both the area’s history and the engineering data the county hopes to obtain will stop the changes before they’re officially instated, after which time it will be a much harder battle for the county, especially financially.
“The problem we have right now is that this could cost a lot of money,” Deakle said. “They’re under the presumption that they’re right until we prove them wrong. Now, we have to go out a pay a lot of money to do what they should have done in the first place. It’s not right to put that on the local people’s backs.”
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