Coloradans may have to pay more for flood insurance

By Jerd Smith, Rocky Mountain News

Published June 19, 2008 at 5:49 p.m.

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Seven Front Range counties, including five in metro Denver, are classified as high-risk flood zones, according to a new analysis by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The ranking doesn't mean flooding is imminent. It means the metro area has high numbers of people living along water ways and in flood plains, officials said.

It also means that homeowners may have to pay more for flood insurance, and that building restrictions in flood zones could increase.

The Colorado project is part of a national post-Katrina effort to flood-proof communities.

"It's not something people should be alarmed about," said Kevin Houck, a state engineer working with FEMA on its flood mapping and analysis project. "But it's really good information to have. It's easy to forget in Colorado that floods do happen."

The analysis comes as part of a $40.8 million, five-year project to examine and map, county by county, where Colorado's flood risks are, whether levees and dams are adequate, and how to make sure homeowners and businesses have adequate protection and insurance.

The counties FEMA has identified as flood hot spots are: Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Denver, El Paso, Jefferson and Larimer.

"People need to know whether they are in a flood plain," said Nancy Steinberger, a regional hydraulic engineer for FEMA who is overseeing the mapping and assessment work in Colorado.

"They also need to see the nearest place where they could evacuate and where the nearest high ground is, in case streets are flooded," she said.

FEMA is also working with the Corps of Engineers to determine which Corps-constructed levees, dikes and dams are unsafe. Two in Colorado — one near Creede and one just outside Granada — were deemed "in need of immediate repair."

Now work is under way to fix the structures and to ensure communities are adequately protected.

"Every structure we have is being re-evaluated," said Jerry DeFelice, a FEMA spokeman.

But the cost, both to repair aging dams and levees, and to procure flood insurance, is high.

The tiny community of Grenada had no cash on hand to fix the dike that protected it from the flood waters of Wolf Creek, but it was able to secure $131,000 in state grant money to do the work.

"The Corps of Engineers built the levy, but we were responsible for maintaining it," said Grenada Mayor Jerene DeBono. "They came down last year and said they would withdraw their backing of the project if we didn't fix it. That would have meant the town residents would have had a hard time getting flood insurance."

Insurance costs are high as well. Homes in some high risk areas, such as those along South Boulder Creek, must pay as much as $2,700 a year for flood insurance, in addition to homeowner's insurance, according to the FEMA web site www.floodsmart.gov/floodsmart.

"I think it's frustrating for communities," Steinberger said, "but we need people to understand what the risk is."

Houck said the metro area's actual flood risk isn't any worse now then it was several years ago, but the maps and the assessment mean each community can be better prepared.

"It's hardest on communities in which the flood plain is expanded," Houck said. "People think, 'I've lived here all my life and now you're telling me I need flood insurance,?'"

"I try to look at it differently," Houck said. "These are risk identification tools. They're telling people 'you're at risk. You need to know that.'"

HOW FEMA DETERMINES A COUNTY'S FLOOD RISK:

FEMA, as part of a new effort to more accurately map where flood zones lie, is assessing state-by-state, and county-by-county, which communities are at risk for flooding. The agency uses eight factors to determine a region's ranking:

1. Population (2000 census)

2. Change in population from 1990 to 2000 (to identify areas that are growing)

3. Number of housing units

4. Flood insurance policies

5. Single loss claims

6. Repetitive loss claims

7. Repetitive loss properties

8. Federally declared flood-related disasters

Source: Federal Emergency Management Agency

Scripps Howard News Service contributed to this report.

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