My Take: We need to empower, help those affected by flooding
Two years ago, my hometown of Spring Lake, Michigan, experienced a local weather emergency when heavy rain and flooding damaged more than 100 homes and businesses in the region. Storm drains were inundated and overwhelmed with record-high water levels. Flooding here provided a warning for the future because as Ottawa County Emergency Manager Nick Bonstell said, “most likely this is going to happen again.”
As a professor of Natural Resource Management here in western Michigan, I have been monitoring the changing environmental and weather conditions in our local communities and across the country. The facts are undeniable: heavy rains that lead to dangerous flooding are becoming more frequent and severe.
Many communities are already experiencing repeated flooding. In 2017, residents in Houston, Texas experienced their third 500-year flood event within three years. In the Northeast, tidal flood days have tripled from where they were 22 years ago. In Florida, rainfall from Hurricane Ian just produced a 1,000-year flooding event. And here in the Midwest, Detroit alone experienced two 500-year flood events in the past eight years.
Residents in communities like these, that have been hit time and time again by devastating flooding, often must wait for months or even years to find lasting protection. Too many times, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) pays for flood survivors to repair a home that an owner would rather leave. And too frequently, federal dollars are used to buy and demolish a flooded structure only after it has been rebuilt.
But Congress could change that.
The Protecting Families and the Solvency of the National Flood Insurance Program Act of 2022 (H.R.7842) would help families and taxpayers by offering new options for those who have experienced repeated flooding and wish to move out of harm’s way.
Today, repeatedly flooded homes make up a small fraction of flood insurance policies, but they account for a large portion of the federal program’s losses. In many cases, these same homes strain the capacity of local emergency service providers and building departments. That is why some local governments — such as in Nashville, Tennessee; Austin, Texas; and Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina — have opted to address their flooding hotspots with local buyout programs, not forcing anyone to move but trying to be ready to help when one more flood convinces a family that the time to move has come.
The pending legislation recognizes the successes of these ongoing programs to help flood survivors find safety and turn risky lots into parkland, bike trails, or other natural areas to provide a safe buffer between flood-prone rivers and homes. It offers incentives for more communities to take action in the neighborhoods that suffer from flooding time and again. In participating communities, H.R.7842 would allow the FEMA administrator to expedite buyouts if requested by a homeowner. Rather than accepting a payout from a flood insurance claim to begin rebuilding in a flood-prone area, insured families could use the money they would have received from the NFIP to start the process of relocation. And communities that lay the groundwork for relocations before disaster strikes could be prioritized for additional assistance from federal disaster programs.
As the frequency, intensity, and cost of heavy rains and flooding increase, we know that communities like ours will see heavy rains and damaging flooding again. Many families have already experienced the trauma of flood waters rising in their home time and time again. It’s important that the federal government and our local governments take steps to help flood survivors move quickly out of the path of the next flood.
Congressman Bill Huizenga, who serves on the powerful Financial Services Committee, tasked with addressing our flooding problems, has spoken out publicly for the need to tackle flood risk with common sense policies like this one. He and all members of the Michigan Congressional Delegation would be wise to consider supporting this legislation.
— Erik Nordman is a professor of Natural Resources Management at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: My Take: We need to empower, help those affected by flooding
