By KEVIN CHIRI
Slidell news bureau
SLIDELL – With a unified Louisiana congressional delegation pushing hard in Washington to halt the planned increases for flood insurance, St. Tammany Parish has been named one of five parishes in the state that FEMA has selected to determine flood hazards by utilizing non-accredited levee systems.
Louisiana residents have been expecting unbelievable increases in flood insurance premiums after the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act was approved by Congress in 2012. Some of the more extreme examples have been documented with homes going from $600 annual premiums to over $28,000.
As the reality of the Reform Act began to unfold in 2013, a bi-partisan effort began to halt the expected increases until a more realistic plan could be crafted. Federal lawmakers pointed out the biggest flaws in the new law as FEMA not allowing levees or flood protection measures to be considered in rate determination unless they were Corps of Engineers-approved levees and drainage systems.
Additionally, homes that had been built according to proper code were facing large increases, even though homeowners did everything they were told in raising or constructing their house. Legislators were seeking grandfathering on those premium hikes.
Louisiana lawmakers have pulled together to seek reconsideration of the Biggert-Waters Act and have gotten support from Congress as the facts about the new law were laid out. Additionally, the pressure from the state has led to FEMA Associate Administrator David Miller agreeing to make a trip to Louisiana on August 8 to meet with parish presidents here.
“FEMA is currently struggling with how to give proper credit to all flood control features,” La. Rep. David Vitter said. “Flood insurance is vital for businesses and families in Louisiana. We need to make sure all new maps are 100 percent accurate and properly credit every levee and flood control feature so people who have been following the rules aren’t priced out of their homes because flood insurance rates increase so dramatically.”
U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise told an East St. Tammany Chamber business meeting that a bill to postpone some of the expected increases passed the House of Representatives with a 2-to-1 margin, making it clear congressional members in Washington are agreeing the bill needs rewriting.
Additionally, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu said that on Tuesday, the full Senate Appropriates Committee passed her legislation to prevent FEMA from raising rates on grandfathered properties, at least for now.
Vitter and Scalise joined with Landrieu and 23 other lawmakers in Congress to call on FEMA to rescind flawed flood maps that are scheduled to be released later this year, without considering local levees. When those final flood maps are released, insurance companies will use them to determine rates. However, the key point of contention has been getting FEMA to allow non-accredited levee systems to be considered when drafting those maps.
The first step in that direction seemed to come this week when FEMA agreed to use five parishes in a pilot program to reconsider other non-accredited levee systems, with St. Tammany among those parishes selected.
“Communities have made significant investments to protect themselves (building local levees), but currently aren’t getting any credit from FEMA,” Landrieu said. “For too long, FEMA has failed to recognize the reality on the ground along the coast; the new guidelines for these parishes are an important opportunity to improve FEMA’s understanding of coastal Louisiana’s unique topography and conditions.”
FEMA is relenting to the pressure from Louisiana lawmakers, acknowledging in a previous letter that there are shortcomings in the new policy, and agreeing to make changes that would increase the accuracy and reliability of flood maps.
John Case, co-owner of Slidell’s Lowry, Dunham, Case & Vivien insurance agency, gave one example of the pending changes noting “I had a family in their 50s who built a house 10 years ago, intending it to be their final home. They have paid $1,556 a year for flood insurance, but if the law goes through, their premium will go up to $14,857. They will not be able to keep their home.”
That possible scenario, if current flood maps are approved, would have a chilling effect on the national economy, local banker Pete Cavignac said, noting that many homeowners would simply abandon their houses and let them go back to the mortgage company since they could no longer afford their monthly note.
That would create a ripple throughout numerous areas of the national economy with the potential effect on the country worse than any previous banking disaster, he said.
St. Tammany Parish President Pat Brister has been part of an eight-member Southeast Louisiana coalition that has already made several trips to Washington to also lobby for the case of residents here.
The Biggert-Waters Act was passed last year to help the national flood insurance program become solvent. Billions of dollars in claims from natural disasters in the past decade led Congress to begin looking closer at the program, which had previously subsidized homeowners in high risk areas. Once the final new flood maps are drawn, there will reportedly be no more subsidized policies and individuals will be paying a true premium for the risk of flooding, wherever they live.
