![]() ![]() ![]() For every community, it’s a multi-year process of identifying flood sources and how they’ve changed in recent years, actual data collection, statistical modeling and analysis. The update process is fairly extensive, because they know that changing a house’s flood risk can really impact someone’s finances and home value. Ithaca is in a bowl the buck stops with Ithaca,” said Hoyt. Now instead of getting absorbed, the water’s going into ditches, and sewer drains, that drain into the three major streams flowing into Ithaca. Every time you build on the hills, you change the routing of the water or the way it gets absorbed. With things changing on the hills, we didn’t have as many parking lots or buildings there, as many housing developments. Since then, the population of Tompkins County has grown tens of thousands of people, more buildings and paved areas exist now, and climate change, defined in this case as updated climatological data of how often intense rainfall or ice jams occur, is a factor as well. Tompkins County’s maps were seriously outdated - the data was last revised in 1981. Risk Mapping, Assessment and Planning (Risk MAP) updates are usually initiated through a combination of currently known flood risks, available data, and increases in development or local population. Reasonably, for over 22,000 mapped communities, it takes some time to update flood hazard mapping. Typically the map is provided alongside a Flood Insurance Study (FIS) report, created by a county-by-county process. But then we get to the question, how do we know an area is flood-prone? For that, insurers and homeowners turn to a Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM), published by the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). If you’re in an area prone to flooding, chances are, your mortgage provider will demand you have it. Let’s go into a little more detail about flood insurance here. If you live in an area prone to earthquakes or, more pertinent to Ithaca, prone to floods, you typically need specialized insurance - in this case, flood insurance. “Acts of God” natural disasters and acts of war aren’t reimbursable events. However, homeowner’s insurance doesn’t cover certain conditions. ![]() That includes the size and features of the home, its condition and its neighborhood, which takes into account things like crime rate. Just like your car, the amount you pay for a policy is based on a number of risk factors. Any homeowner with a mortgage is going to have homeowner’s insurance, protection of the property against damage and theft inside and out. So as we delve into this issue, let’s start off with something of a primer. Cascadilla Gorge (Photo by Casey Martin) Credit: Casey Martin / The Ithaca Voice So how did things get to this point? It’s a combination of bad timing and circumstance. Aspiring homeowners will be forced to pay thousands for flood insurance in order to get a mortgage, making housing even less affordable in a city strained by rising housing costs. Existing homeowners will see a drop in property value that reduced what they could get for their properties if they choose to sell, as well as buy flood insurance if they still have a mortgage or plan to take out a home equity loan. First I’m thinking they can’t afford this, or they may not be able to afford this, and then add to it that if they want to sell their property, they may not be able to get what they thought they were going to get, or what the standard of the market would bring, because the cost of the flood insurance may be prohibitive,” Hoyt continued. A lot of the property owners may not be able to afford the flood insurance,” said Hoyt. It worries me that the owners of those properties will have to reduce asking prices in order to be able to sell. “When I first saw this, my reaction was, this was going to be a problem for the city of Ithaca because it’s going to devalue the properties, because there’s so many properties going into the flood plain. She knows where it floods, how often it floods, and how much it’s going to cost a homeowner to live with the threat of floods. Sally Hoyt is a Vice President at Tompkins Insurance, and has a reputation for being the “flood queen” of Tompkins County. Just how bad could it be? Well, let’s ask someone who’s in the know. ![]()
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