Necessity for flood insurance lessens

Bryce Alderton

Fewer property owners in Huntington Beach will be required to pay

flood insurance.

That is, if no appeals are made in the next 90 days to changes that

the Federal Emergency Management Agency made to the flood insurance rate

map for Huntington Beach. The changes alter the boundaries of the area

considered a flood hazard zone in the southwest section of the city,

effectively reducing the number of property owners required to pay flood

insurance.

The areas targeted for change are a section surrounding Adams and

Yorktown avenues and an area south of Adams Avenue that runs toward the

beach.

If no appeals are filed by Feb. 13 the map will take effect.

“The map takes 75% or more of the people out of the flood plain,” said

FEMA engineer Ray Lenaburg.

The agency and the city worked together on the new map for nine months

to establish base flood elevations for structures considered in the flood

hazard zone, an area that encompasses Garfield Avenue south toward the

beach, and from the Santa Ana River west to Beach Boulevard.

A base flood elevation calculates the amount of flooding that would

occur if a flood control channel overflows, in what is termed a 100-year

flood.

“A 100-year flood zone means there’s a 1% chance of a flood happening

in any given year,” said Huntington Beach associate planner Susan Pierce.

For example, if a structure’s ground elevation is three feet and the

flood elevation is six feet, then the structure could potentially have

three feet of flooding in a major flooding event.

The city insisted that base flood elevations be established.”We had a

lot of concern as to why some properties still had to stay in the flood

zone,” Pierce said. “Parts of Huntington Beach in the [flood hazard] zone

had no flood elevations determined. We were very insistent that [the

agency] establish base flood elevations. But it’s a good map given the

circumstances and influence from the ocean.”

If more data becomes available, the agency will design new maps.

“The mapping is like a referee. It identifies where the high-risk

areas are and can be changed if anybody brings new scientific data to

bear,” said Jack Eldridge, FEMA flood plain management chief for Region 9

in San Francisco. “We just map and show what the high-risk areas are.

People can send us more information and we’ll adjust the maps.”

The reduction in the flood plain takes into account flooding impacts

from the Talbert and Huntington Beach flood control channels.

Residents and business owners in the flood-hazard zone are required to

have flood insurance as long as they have a mortgage or take out a loan.

Improvements made to the Santa Ana River Channel by the county in the

last two decades allowed for the reduction in the flood plain map.

The county will continue to work on widening the channels, allowing

them to handle floods.

“The target date for completing construction on these channels is five

to seven years assuming there are no El Ninos,” said county engineer Sara

Bavan. “The flood plain would be further reduced at that time and maybe

even eliminated.”

The agency issued a map revision last January that removed portions of

Fountain Valley from a flood area because improvements had been made or a

project was underway on the Santa Ana River Channel to reduce the chance

of flooding.

But just because an area has been taken out of a flood zone doesn’t

mean a flood couldn’t occur there.

“You could still have water spilling out of a channel, storm drains

could plug up, there could be inadequate levy capacities,” Lenaburg said.

“When we do these maps, everything is assumed to be in working

condition.”

In fact, a third of the insurance claims Eldridge receives are from

buildings that lie outside flood hazard areas.

Residents and business owners in the flood zone can take advantage of

the 90-day grace period by purchasing flood insurance at a lower rate.

The rate depends on the amount of coverage one gets, if the property

owner wants to charge for flood insurance, and or if someone takes out a

loan.

The public is invited to a public forum from 3 to 5 p.m. Thursday Nov.

8, where it can view maps and have questions answered by representatives

from the agency and the city.