Residents and business owners in Broad Channel, N.Y., are protesting skyrocketing insurance rates that are part of a new federal law designed to keep FEMA afloat. The new law increases the number of areas that are deemed flood zones and stipulates that homeowners in those areas raise their houses or face increased premiums. Don Dahler reports.
Why Taxpayers Will Bail Out the Rich When the Next Storm Hits
By Bill Dedman
GULF
SHORES, Ala. — As homeowners around the nation protest skyrocketing
premiums for federal flood insurance, the Federal Emergency Management
Agency has quietly moved the lines on its flood maps to benefit hundreds
of oceanfront condo buildings and million-dollar homes, according to an
analysis of federal records by NBC News.
The
changes shift the financial burden for the next destructive hurricane,
tsunami or tropical storm onto the neighbors of these wealthy
beach-dwellers — and ultimately onto all American taxpayers.
In more than 500 instances
from the Gulf of Alaska to Bar Harbor, Maine, FEMA has remapped
waterfront properties from the highest-risk flood zone, saving the
owners as much as 97 percent on the premiums they pay into the
financially strained National Flood Insurance Program.
NBC
News also found that FEMA has redrawn maps even for properties that
have repeatedly filed claims for flood losses from previous storms. At
least some of the properties are on the secret "repetitive loss list"
that FEMA sends to communities to alert them to problem properties. FEMA
says that it does not factor in previous losses into its decisions on
applications to redraw the flood zones.
And
FEMA has given property owners a break even when the changes are
opposed by the town hall official in charge of flood control. Although
FEMA asks the local official to sign off on the map changes, it told NBC
that its policy is to consider the applications even if the local
expert opposes the change.
"If
it's been flooded, it's susceptible to being flooded again. We all know
that," said Larry A. Larson, director emeritus of the 15,000-member
national Association of State Floodplain Managers. "FEMA is ignoring
data that's readily available. That's not smart. And it puts taxpayer
money at risk."
The
neighboring resorts of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach on the South
Alabama coast include a stretch of beach that was flooded by Hurricanes
Erin and Opal in 1995, Danny in 1997, Georges in 1998, Ivan in 2004, and
Katrina in 2005. The map changes here offer a vivid example of the
risks that come with such reclassifications.
The
direct hit by Ivan was the worst, bringing not gently rising
floodwaters but a 14-foot wall of water that leveled buildings and
flooded more than a mile inland. That’s why flood maps show most of this
beach as a "coastal velocity wave zone," the area with the highest risk
of damage from storm surge.
But
nearly all of the condominium towers are no longer in that high-risk
zone, including a 17-story condominium built where the old Holiday Inn
was wiped away by Ivan’s winds and waves, and another where the
McDonald's was a total loss. From 2011 through 2013, FEMA granted
applications remapping 66 out of 72 waterfront condo towers in Gulf
Shores to lower-risk flood zones or off the flood maps entirely. Four
others have applications pending. Just two applications have been
denied. And next door in Orange Beach, the map lines have been redrawn
around four high-rise condo buildings.
On
a single day, Oct. 25, 2012 — a day when FEMA was closely monitoring
Hurricane Sandy as it barreled toward the Atlantic Coast — a FEMA
manager issued a document
reclassifying a full mile of the coastal property in Gulf Shores. That
document, just one of the 533 cases found nationwide by NBC News, redrew
the lines to exclude 25 condo buildings from the highest-risk flood
zone.
This beachfront condo, the Island Tower, collected $11,562 for its damage from Katrina, and more than $250,000 from Ivan.
John Brecher / NBC News
The
Island Tower condominium building, right, and the Phoenix All Suites
Hotel, left, rise above the beach in Gulf Shores. FEMA remapped both
into lower-risk flood zones.
The
Island Tower's condo association was paying $143,190 a year into the
National Flood Insurance Program. Now that it's been reclassified into a
lower-risk flood zone, its premium is $8,457 a year, a saving of 94
percent, according to records examined by NBC News.
Just
down the beach is the Royal Palms. It collected $58,230 for damages
during Katrina, and $889,730 from Ivan. The Royal Palms was paying
$218,484 a year, but after being changed to a lower-risk flood zone, now
pays only $6,845, saving 97 percent.
The
map changes in just these two towns resulted in at least $5 million a
year in lost revenue to the flood insurance program, according to
records examined by NBC News. All of these changes were approved by FEMA
despite opposition from the city officials in charge of floodplain
management.
Elsewhere
in Gulf Shores, homeowners are paying as much as $12,000 a year in
flood insurance premiums for their single-family homes, according to
insurance records. These homeowners are paying as much as several large
condo buildings combined.
Properties from Alaska to Maine
Because
waterfront properties are expensive, and it costs thousands of dollars
to hire an engineer to press a case with FEMA, the remapped properties
tend to be luxurious, either the first or second homes of
industrialists, real estate developers and orthopedic surgeons.
The 533 properties include a $4 million home in the Hamptons resort on Long Island, N.Y., owned by a married couple who direct Wall Street investment firms.
In Miami, the beneficiaries include the twin 37-story condos at ritzy Turnberry Isle in Sunny Isles Beach, and also the Regalia, "the most luxurious building in South Florida."
Courtesy of Pictometry International Corp.
The
Naples, Fla., home of Robert A. Watson, at left, was moved in 2013 out
of the highest-risk flood zone, while its neighbors continue to pay
higher rates for flood insurance.
In Naples, Fla., a $19 million home
was remapped last year out of the high-risk zone. The owner, Robert A.
Watson, former president and CEO of units of Westinghouse Electric and
Transamerica, said his property is protected by a floodwall, and he
sought the map change last year not to save money but because FEMA has
changed the map elevations in that area so many times. He said he wanted
to know for sure that a guesthouse would be permitted. (He called
mandatory flood insurance "a massive scam on the American people.")
In New York, FEMA granted the Mamaroneck Beach & Yacht Club's request
to be remapped from the high-risk flood zone in August 2012 — just two
months before the club was damaged and its outbuildings destroyed by
Hurricane Sandy, which stacked up yachts at its docks like pick-up
sticks. The club told NBC that its engineering study showed that FEMA's map was wrong.
"Sandy
was a once in a millennium event, and therefore cannot be the sole
determination for planning," said Eric L. Gordon, attorney for the yacht
club.
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FEMA
48 Hour Delivery Order: 100,000 "Doctor Scrubs"; 1000 (100 Person)
Shelters; + Fuel, Showers, Bathrooms, and Hygine Equipment; Apparent
Mobilization of the National Disaster Medical System
The situation appears to be a mobilization of the National Disaster Medical System
Summary:
Based on Federal Solicitations, FEMA is readying to deploy 100,000
medical personnel to 1000 shelter locations (100 medical personnel per
location) on 48 hours notice. These shelter locations appear to be the
housing quarters for the medical teams, as they are being stocked with
atypical luxury, aka mobile showers, restrooms, hot food, medical
clothing (scrubs), winter "sweat shirts and pants" etc.
Contractor comments/questions call it an "Armageddon scenario" and
question the capabilities of their industries to support it. These
Government solicitations have all the earmarks of massive logistical
incompetence.
The threat being prepared for appears to be coming
out of the Pacific Rim region, a likely scenario is the human spread of
Avian Bird Flu (H7N9) out of China. We think less it is less likely
(but we can't rule it out) that this is a Fukushima preparation because
nuclear threats are invisible and usually deniable. Any such
mobilization MUST BE less panic inducing than the threat which it seeks
to quell, aka PANDEMIC.
PARTIAL Details:
100,000 "Doctor Scrubs" pants and shirts, 90% Adult Sizes (MUST DELIVER 50,000 with 48 hours notice)
100,000 "Sweat shirts and pants" 90% adult. (MUST DELIVER 50,000 with 48 hours notice)
1000 Shelters each holding 100 people, with mobile showers and restrooms supporting (2000 total showers).
And enough Fuel, Hot food delivery containers, sundries, protective equipment, hygine equipment and etc to supply.
6,000,000 autoclavable cotton blankets and so on and so forth, all must
be available under "SURGE TEMPO" and typically in 48 hours notice.
8,100,000 liters of Bottled Drinking Water and 3,000,000 liters of Extended Shelf Life Drinking Water
Notable contractor comments:
Contractor A (Mobile showers and restrooms):
I think the Armageddon scenario is too large to provide the Federal
Emergency Management Agency with several responsible parties....we
could address and service the 20 camps in California, the 5 in Oregon
and the 5 in Washington"
Contractor B: (6,000,000 Pcs order for autoclabable blankets)
Question4. Would we be able to get a longer lead time for the initial
order and then 30 days for the remainder of the contract? As the
blankets will be manufactured in Pakistan? It will be hard to carry
100,000 Pcs in Inventory. We on a general basis stock no more than
25,000 - 30,000 Pcs in inventory locally in GA.
Answer4. No.
CBS News 
NBC News
John Brecher / NBC News
NBC News
Courtesy of Pictometry International Corp. 
