Some people in Pierce county might want to call their insurance agent because they may now need flood insurance.
New FEMA flood-mapping has determined that 800 properties that weren’t considered “high risk” for flooding before, now fall under that category.
It’s all because of new mapping data and technology.
“This is a very ugly lakefront property, I guess,” shrugged Parkland homeowner Diane Olson-Howard looking through her fence gate to a giant pool of water in the greenbelt behind her home.
The flooding happens in Olson-Howard’s backyard, every time it rains hard for consecutive days.
When it’s really bad, she said the water floods her yard, comes through the backdoor and in 2015 it devoured a wall of siding on her and her husband’s home.
“It’s horrible to start see the water creep towards your house, we have ducks in our backyard so that’s not any fun,” said Olson-Howard.
She’s learned to brace for it, but what she didn’t know was why it floods.
For the first time, new FEMA mapping has revealed this giant puddle is sitting on top of an old historic creek channel, and that qualifies it from a low risk to a high risk flood plain zone.
That’s news to Diane and her 20 neighbors affected.
Billy Rockwoods son and ex-wife also live here.
“It’s a giant puddle when it rains for a week straight, then it gets bigger and bigger,” said Rockwood.
The new mapping also identified areas that the county thought were high risk for flooding, but actually they are not high risk. Some of them include one side a row of homes in Puyallup along the Diru Creek and many of the homes around Lake Tapps.
“This brand new map coming out it is just a much better representation of risk,” said Dennis Dixon, Pierce County Civil Engineer with the County’s Surface Water Management.
Now 1,500 homes once considered “high risk” in unincorporated Pierce County are not.
But, the new mapping has revealed 800 homes that are currently not high risk, that should be.
Dixon said better modeling overlaid on top of on better topography maps have made the difference.
If the Pierce County Council approves the FEMA maps, as expected on Tuesday, it would mean flood insurance rates for those affected could go up.
The news rate would take effect March 7.
“Buy your insurance today, if you buy it today you get an insurance policy based on today’s rate which is low risk, lock it in,” suggested Dixon.
Those flood insurance changes for high risk areas affect properties with federally backed mortgages, which require flood insurance.
Olson-Howard and her family have flood insurance, but she worries, the higher risk, will mean higher premiums.
“We have a problem selling, have to get higher and higher flood insurance each year, we are kind of in a predicament,” she said.
Homeowners who are no longer in a flood zone, can try to negotiate for a premium reduction with their lender. The county and one insurance agent we talked to insisted, “they won’t call you, you have to call them.”
The County Council will vote Tuesday on whether to approve the FEMA map
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