Last year, Graham County voted to reject FEMA floodplain maps. The decision was based in part on the fact that FEMA mapped only 10% of the county’s rivers and made assumptions about the rest. Other reasons included increased costs of compliance for property owners wishing to build. Ground-level engineering was going to cost between $30,000 and $50,000; and that was after floodplain properties were devalued by about 75% on average. Perhaps the most important reason was people were raising a stink about the hardships.
Since then, many property owners have either lost their insurance or had to buy expensive policies.
More than 90 owners of mobile homes faced the loss of their flood insurance, which is required on mobile homes regardless of whether they are set in a flood zone or not.
The county now wishes to “get out of FEMA’s non-compliance category.”
