Download or read book Levees and the National Flood Insurance Program written by Committee on Levees and the National Flood Insurance Program Improving Policies and Practices and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2013-08-01 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration (FIMA) manages the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which is a cornerstone in the U.S. strategy to assist communities to prepare for, mitigate against, and recover from flood disasters. The NFIP was established by Congress with passage of the National Flood Insurance Act in 1968, to help reduce future flood damages through NFIP community floodplain regulation that would control development in flood hazard areas, provide insurance for a premium to property owners, and reduce federal expenditures for disaster assistance. The flood insurance is available only to owners of insurable property located in communities that participate in the NFIP. Currently, the program has 5,555,915 million policies in 21,881 communities3 across the United States. The NFIP defines the one percent annual chance flood (100-year or base flood) floodplain as a Special Flood Hazard Area (SFHA). The SFHA is delineated on FEMA's Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRM's) using topographic, meteorologic, hydrologic, and hydraulic information. Property owners with a federally back mortgage within the SFHAs are required to purchase and retain flood insurance, called the mandatory flood insurance purchase requirement (MPR). Levees and floodwalls, hereafter referred to as levees, have been part of flood management in the United States since the late 1700's because they are relatively easy to build and a reasonable infrastructure investment. A levee is a man-made structure, usually an earthen embankment, designed and constructed in accordance with sound engineering practices to contain, control, or divert the flow of water so as to provide protection from temporary flooding. A levee system is a flood protection system which consists of a levee, or levees, and associated structures, such as closure and drainage devices, which are constructed and operated in accordance with sound engineering practices. Recognizing the need for improving the NFIP's treatment of levees, FEMA officials approached the National Research Council's (NRC) Water Science and Technology Board (WSTB) and requested this study. The NRC responded by forming the ad hoc Committee on Levee and the National Flood Insurance Program: Improving Policies and Practices, charged to examine current FEMA treatment of levees within the NFIP and provide advice on how those levee-elated policies and activities could be improved. The study addressed four broad areas, risk analysis, flood insurance, risk reduction, and risk communication, regarding how levees are considered in the NFIP. Specific issues within these areas include current risk analysis and mapping procedures behind accredited and non-accredited levees, flood insurance pricing and the mandatory flood insurance purchase requirement, mitigation options to reduce risk for communities with levees, flood risk communication efforts, and the concept of shared responsibility. The principal conclusions and recommendations are highlighted in this report.
Download or read book Levees and the National Flood Insurance Program written by and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Locally Operated Levees Issues and Federal Programs written by and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book National Flood Insurance Program Background Challenges and Financial Status written by and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Levee Policy for the National Flood Insurance Program written by National Research Council and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 119 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Midwest Flood written by United States. General Accounting Office and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Recommendations of the National Committee on Levee Safety written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book National Levee Safety and Dam Safety Programs written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book National Flood Insurance Program written by David Schein and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book National Flood Insurance Program Levee System Evaluation Report NLSER for Tres Rio North Levee Maricopa County Arizona written by United States. Army. Corps of Engineers. Los Angeles District and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Flood Preparedness and Mitigation written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book National Levee Safety Program Act of 2006 written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Dam and Levee Safety and Community Resilience written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2012-10-11 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although advances in engineering can reduce the risk of dam and levee failure, some failures will still occur. Such events cause impacts on social and physical infrastructure that extend far beyond the flood zone. Broadening dam and levee safety programs to consider community- and regional-level priorities in decision making can help reduce the risk of, and increase community resilience to, potential dam and levee failures. Collaboration between dam and levee safety professionals at all levels, persons and property owners at direct risk, members of the wider economy, and the social and environmental networks in a community would allow all stakeholders to understand risks, shared needs, and opportunities, and make more informed decisions related to dam and levee infrastructure and community resilience. Dam and Levee Safety and Community Resilience: A Vision for Future Practice explains that fundamental shifts in safety culture will be necessary to integrate the concepts of resilience into dam and levee safety programs.
Download or read book Mississippi River Tragedies written by Christine A. Klein and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2014-02-28 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Read a free excerpt here! American engineers have done astounding things to bend the Mississippi River to their will: forcing one of its tributaries to flow uphill, transforming over a thousand miles of roiling currents into a placid staircase of water, and wresting the lower half of the river apart from its floodplain. American law has aided and abetted these feats. But despite our best efforts, so-called “natural disasters” continue to strike the Mississippi basin, as raging floodwaters decimate waterfront communities and abandoned towns literally crumble into the Gulf of Mexico. In some places, only the tombstones remain, leaning at odd angles as the underlying soil erodes away. Mississippi River Tragedies reveals that it is seductively deceptive—but horribly misleading—to call such catastrophes “natural.” Authors Christine A. Klein and Sandra B. Zellmer present a sympathetic account of the human dreams, pride, and foibles that got us to this point, weaving together engaging historical narratives and accessible law stories drawn from actual courtroom dramas. The authors deftly uncover the larger story of how the law reflects and even amplifies our ambivalent attitude toward nature—simultaneously revering wild rivers and places for what they are, while working feverishly to change them into something else. Despite their sobering revelations, the authors’ final message is one of hope. Although the acknowledgement of human responsibility for unnatural disasters can lead to blame, guilt, and liability, it can also prod us to confront the consequences of our actions, leading to a liberating sense of possibility and to the knowledge necessary to avoid future disasters.
Download or read book H R 4650 the National Levee Safety Program Act written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Floodplain Management Handbook written by H. James Owen and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The National Flood Insurance Program written by Rawle O. King and published by Createspace Independent Pub. This book was released on 2013-01-05 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On October 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy struck the East Coast region, causing intense winds, high rainfall, waves, and storm surge, as well as economic disruptions in states throughout the Northeast and the mid-Atlantic region. Communities in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut were particularly hard hit. The devastating floods exposed vulnerabilities in the region's public transportation and infrastructure and underscores the nation's growing exposure to coastal hazards. The full economic cost of Sandy will not be known for years, but current preliminary estimates of physical property damage, not including flood losses likely to be paid under the government's National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), range from $30 billion to $55 billion, of which about $16 billion to $22 billion will be privately insured losses. Sandy is expected to require substantial federal disaster recovery assistance, including tens of billions for flood and hurricane protection and coastal restoration. Given the geographic scope of heavily flooded areas and residential take-up rates (number of flood policies divided by total number of households) in affected coastal communities that participate in the NFIP, government payouts under the NFIP are estimated to be from $12 billion to $15 billion in flood claims. This amount exceeds the $4 billion in cash and remaining borrowing authority from the Treasury Department. The Obama Administration has announced it will ask Congress to raise the NFIP borrowing authority to $25 billion, or $4.025 billion over its current borrowing authority. But some experts have suggested a $30 billion borrowing cap would be needed to cover even higher projected losses. Emergency supplemental spending on disaster assistance comes at a time when Congress is considering spending cuts and tax increases to address the nation's fiscal debt. In the wake of disaster clean-up and recovery along much of the East Coast region, policymakers, local officials, and other stakeholder groups have expressed a range of flood management concerns facing the NFIP. These include (1) escalating spending on federal emergency supplemental appropriations for disaster relief assistance; (2) uncertainty surrounding the NFIP's ability to reduce the nation's growing exposure to flood losses; (3) rising population growth and economic development in coastal watershed counties or floodplains areas exposed to hurricane induced coastal floods; (4) persistently low insurance participation (take-up rates) in the NFIP; and (5) financing the cost of rebuilding communities stronger, more resilient. On July 6, 2012, President Obama signed into law the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012, P.L. 112-141, that reauthorized the NFIP through September 30, 2017, and made a number of reforms to strengthen the future financial solvency and administrative efficiency of the program by raising historically low premiums and reducing homeowners' incentives for rebuilding in flood risk zones. However, several post-reform issues of contention remain for congressional consideration: revisions in the analysis and mapping of non-accredited levees; actuarial soundness, program solvency, and affordability; debt forgiveness; an integrated watershed flood risk assessment framework; and expansion of the private-sector role in flood risk. This publication provides an analysis of flood risk management, summarizes major challenges facing the NFIP, and outlines key reforms in the recently enacted Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012. The publication also identifies and presents some key remaining flood management issues for congressional considerations, and it concludes with a discussion of relevant policy options for the future financial management of flood hazards in the United States.
