Katrina’s effects being felt here
FOUR YEARS LATER and more than 1,000 miles away, the impact of Hurricane Katrina is still being felt.
The hurricane inflicted nearly $100 billion worth of damage along a wide swath covering much of the eastern half of the United States during its deadly run in the fall of 2005. In the wake of the destruction and property loss, Congress mandated the Federal Emergency Management Agency to refine its floodplain maps throughout the United States. Those maps define what property owners need flood insurance and the goal was to minimize the potential for such catastrophic loss in the future. However, as with so many things Congress does, good intentions were not matched by adequate funds to do the job as it was intended. FEMA did not have the funds to do a complete mapping of every floodplain in the entire country – which would be a monumental task. The result was that new maps in many areas were basically refinements of previous maps, using new technology such as satellite imaging that were not available earlier. They were drawn without the benefit of on-site surveying, mapping or studies. That was the case in Plymouth. The result has been many properties, and many property owners, finding themselves in the floodplain – and requiring flood insurance – they were outside it in the past. What wasn’t taken into account in some cases were physical changes in the area that were not part of the databases FEMA was forced to use to draw the maps because of the lack of funding. The most glaring of these is the removal several years ago of the Meyer’s Park dam, which lowered the Mullet River in that part of the city by two feet, a fact that is not reflected in the new FEMA maps. Needless to say, all of this has sparked anger, confusion and resentment among affected residents. The latest manifestation came at an informational meeting organized by the Plymouth Chamber of Commerce earlier this month. While there were the expected allusions to “taxation without representation” and observations that the Mullet River has never flooded the so-called ‘hundred-year floodplain’ in anyone’s memory, there was a lot of good information and helpful advice shared with the 40-plus people present. There was also a good representation of government officials, including state Sen. Joe Leibham, State Rep. Steve Kestell and a representative from Congressman Tom Petri – Plymouth native Tyler Vorpagel. Vorpagel pledged that he and the congressman will follow up on the situation and would attempt to arrange a meeting locally with FEMA officials to try to resolve the issue. In the meantime, it might be worthwhile, as one person at the meeting suggested, to hold off on or take back the implementation of the maps until the issue can be resolved – although unfortunately, it might take an act of Congress to accomplish that. It is likely that any resolution will not please everyone involved – which is almost always the case in any situation like this. Common sense says some adjustment of the maps is required, and common sense should prevail. But common sense also says that some properties in the area are subject to damage – which should be covered by insurance – should that proverbial one-in-a-hundred chance rain and flood event occur. There are people as near as Sheboygan and Fond du Lac who never believed they were susceptible to such flooding, who had never had it happen to them and never believed it would until those floods hit within the last decade or so. That’s why accurate floodplain mapping, and adequate flood insurance, is needed. It just needs to be done right. At issue: FEMA floodplain maps Bottom line: Do them right
