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Many people were shocked when Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator R. David Paulison signed an agreement at the end of September that would delay the new flood hazard maps for the American Bottom region.
Those maps, which would designate the entire American Bottom as a high-risk flood zone, were scheduled to become official in August 2009. Under the agreement, that date will be pushed back two to three years.
The re-mapping project is going on throughout FEMA’s 10 districts across the nation as a result of the Hurricane Katrina disaster along the Gulf Coast in August 2006. The Mississippi River divides two FEMA districts so that the Illinois side of the St. Louis metro area was being re-mapped by District 5 and the Missouri side by District 7. The two district offices have been working on separate timetables, and the Missouri-side re-mapping was running two to three years behind the Illinois side.
The agreement delays the effective date of the Illinois maps until the re-mapping process is complete across the entire St. Louis metro watershed.
Prior to the FEMA agreement in late September, American Bottom residents and business owners were threatened with mandatory, expensive flood insurance beginning in August 2009. Anyone who held a federally-backed mortgage on property in the American Bottom would be subject to the insurance mandate. The cost of flood insurance, which is not required now in most instances, would more than triple over current rates. For example, insurance on a $100,000 home with contents would jump from $287 per year up to $1,143, according to FEMA estimates. Rates for non-residential buildings - which could include everything from factories to churches - would be much higher.
“The agreement achieves the fairness that we have been working hard to accomplish for the past year,” said U.S. Rep. Jerry Costello, a Democrat from Belleville. “I have said from the beginning that this has been about restoring equity to the re-mapping process, and we have achieved that. Everyone must continue to evaluate his or her personal flood risk and take appropriate measures to protect themselves, but the entire (St. Louis metro) region will be re-mapped at the same time, ensuring no disadvantage to Illinois residents.”
Earlier this year, Costello and U.S. Rep. John Shimkus, a Republican from Collinsville, sponsored legislation to require FEMA to delay implementation of the new flood maps until the entire watershed was completed. That legislation would have affected all the floodplains in the nation that are being reviewed by FEMA. The bill passed the House unanimously and was sent to the Senate. The Senate passed a different version sponsored by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois. The Senate version was specific to the St. Louis watershed. Because two different versions were passed, the bill was sent to a conference committee to resolve the differences.
In recent months, Costello, Shimkus and Durbin have been meeting with FEMA officials in an effort to negotiate an administrative solution. Costello said that after the bill passed the House, FEMA officials expected it would just go away. But, he said, once it passed the Senate and went to a conference committee, he, Shimkus and Durbin were able to convince FEMA that Congress would indeed pass a bill that would impact the entire nation - something that FEMA very much did not want to see happen.
“The first few meetings, they (FEMA) just said ‘absolutely no,’” said Costello. “They were proceeding full-steam ahead. John Shimkus and I worked together on the House side, and Sen. Durbin on the Senate side…and I think they saw the handwriting on the wall that we were not going away, and that this is an issue that we were determined to get done before the end of this session of Congress. Because of our persistence, they finally agreed to talk about it. And after a number of meetings between my staff, Sen. Durbin’s and Congressman Shimkus’, we were able to reach an agreement. FEMA operates in 10 regions and it has funding for certain projects and specific regions,” he added. “The agency felt that if this became law, it would take FEMA many years to accomplish what it wanted to accomplish.”
Costello and Shimkus both said they were surprised that they were able to get the agreement from FEMA. Costello said that while there is a signed agreement with FEMA, he remained concerned that a new administration might overturn it. To ensure against that, Costello said he wanted to get the agreement codified into law by tacking it onto a bill that would be passed by Congress and signed by the president. He found the perfect vehicle in a continuing resolution to keep all governmental agencies functioning at the same funding level through March 8, 2009. That resolution, and the FEMA agreement with it, is now law.
“It’s a great legislative victory for us, and it gives local leaders the opportunity to proceed with the plan that they had implemented and that they are moving forward on,” said Costello. “It’s good news all the way around.”
Alan Dunstan, Madison County board chairman, said he was delighted by the news. He said that some of the poorest areas in Madison and St. Clair County are located in the American Bottom.
Adding $100 per month to these residents’ mortgage payments to pay for flood insurance would have been devastating to them, Dunstan said. He added that it would have made it hard to sell a home in the American Bottom area, and that it would have had a freezing effect on economic development.
Dunstan said preliminary engineering work on the levees is currently being done; the recently approved sales tax will go into effect January 1, 2009 and will provide the funds to pay for the repairs and improvements.
“Giving us time to fix the problem before this becomes a permanent situation is going to help our residential community and our business community,” Dunstan said. “People should still have flood insurance, but that insurance will be a lot cheaper than if those new maps were implemented. We’re going to work as fast as we can to get these levees fixed before the maps become final.”
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