Nassau flood map complaints prompt FEMA ground surveys

Responding to complaints from Nassau residents and officials about new flood maps, FEMA will conduct ground surveys at 100 locations across the county to check the accuracy of its data, officials announced last night.

At a meeting at Valley Stream Central High School attended by 275 angry residents forced to buy flood insurance after their properties were placed in flood zones on the redrawn maps, officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency said they would test the accuracy of the maps and the data used to prepare them to see if mistakes had been made.

Roy Wright, a FEMA flood insurance official, said if the review, which will take several months, uncovers errors, "we will make changes." "We are required to have the best available information," he said.

Wright said raising the base flood elevation on the maps released in September 2009 for Valley Stream from about 8 feet above sea level to 11 feet above sea level was based on data supplied by Nassau County, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Army Corps of Engineers.

That move forced hundreds of homeowners to spend amounts ranging from hundreds of dollars to more than $1,000 annually for flood insurance they'd never had before. FEMA considers the "flood zones" to be the level to which water would be expected to rise in a storm of the severity that could be expected on average once in a century.

Carol Crupi, a community leader, told the contingent of FEMA officials present at the meeting the agency "has assaulted American homeowners and decimated our property values" by its redrawn flood zones. "You are crushing us," she said.

Another Valley Stream resident, Cecil Maloney, said: "I think the science is flawed." He called the flood insurance program, which FEMA administers, "a boondoggle."

Residents welcomed the new FEMA initiative but still wanted the agency to survey every affected Valley Stream property.

At a meeting Aug. 31 in Valley Stream, the agency agreed to conduct some ground surveys in response to resident complaints that aerial surveying used for the new maps was inaccurate.

Last week, FEMA agreed to withdraw new flood plain maps proposed for parts of two Maine counties after local officials complained that data they'd compiled wasn't considered. Speaking before last night's meeting, Crupi said the Maine decision gave hope for Valley Stream residents.

But New York officials say the Maine decision may not help the cause of Long Islanders. In Maine, communities challenged the maps right after they were released as drafts and before they were implemented. No Long Island community did that, and changing implemented maps under federal regulations is more difficult, the officials said.

Asked about the implications of the Maine decision for Long Island, FEMA spokeswoman Rachel Racusen said, "Every community is different, which is why FEMA works closely with state and local officials, on a case-by-case basis . . . We will continue to work with local officials and residents to ensure that any data that can improve the maps is taken into account."

U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-Mineola) told homeowners at the meeting that a bill she had introduced to impose a five-year moratorium on a requirement that those with properties added to the new maps must get flood insurance, passed the House on July 15 and was due for consideration when the Senate returned from recess next month.

"We have seen the heartaches you've all been going through," she said.

The new maps added 25,000 Long Island properties to flood zones. By the end of the summer, 347 of them had filed individual challenges to reduce the cost of flood insurance premiums or eliminate the requirement to carry the insurance if they have a mortgage.