Flood maps may bring big changes to valley
Officials question FEMA’s predictions
By KATE MOSER Staff Writer BURLINGTON — Betty and Bud Murry live on high ground, and their home has never been flooded on Highway 20 between Burlington and Sedro-Woolley. But they came out to a sometimes passionate town meeting Thursday night — along with more than 200 more local residents, builders, property owners and elected officials — to learn how coming changes in predicted flood elevations in the Skagit Valley could affect them. The Skagit Valley is bracing for maps expected to be issued this summer by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The maps will show flood elevations much higher than they are now. The new maps will mean big changes, both for existing structures and future building. The Murrys don’t have flood insurance. They don’t live in the floodplain, and everyone has always told them they didn’t need it. They haven’t been affected by current flood elevation maps in any way. But what if they decided to sell their house in the future, Betty Murry wondered. Could the changes in the flood elevation maps affect their property values? Would the changes mean they should buy flood insurance for the first time, and if so, could they afford it? “We’re on a fixed income, and you try to cut corners where you can,” she said. “Believe me,
though, if I thought we were going to flood, I’d be the first to get it.” At Thursday’s meeting, organized by the Burlington Chamber of Commerce, the locals threw down the gauntlet for FEMA. The maps will turn the valley into “ghost towns,” they said. One resident referenced FEMA’s record on dealing with Hurricane Katrina as a reason local homeowners are probably mistrustful of how the agency is handling its flood insurance program. Speakers made it clear that they felt the coming changes were drastic. Burlington City Attorney Scott Thomas wore a life jacket as he gave his presentation. The maps depict how high the federal agency believes water would rise in a 100-year flood of the Skagit River, which has a 1 percent chance of occurring in any given year. Those levels will dictate how high builders will have to construct new buildings after the maps are adopted. Homeowners remodeling their houses will also have to follow them. The maps determine flood insurance rates, and that insurance is necessary for federally backed loans. Residents who can prove their buildings were constructed in compliance with the old maps will pay the same rates as they do now, as will those who have continuously maintained flood insurance. The 100-year-flood elevations are going up partly because of better computer modeling that wasn’t available when FEMA issued them in the 1980s. Now, the computer model analyzes a number of scenarios of what could happen if either or both sides of the levees failed. It can also calculate what would likely happen if the Valley was hit with multiple winter storms in a row. But how high the flood elevations should go up is disputed, and it’s touched off a battle of locals versus the federal agencies in a fight over competing science and the economic effects locals fear the new maps could have. Businessman Don Gordon said the uncertainty generated by the maps would have a “dampening, smothering effect” on property values and the local economy. Gordon promised a good fight if locals don’t get their say in the FEMA process. “If FEMA won’t listen, America will,” he said. A t t o r n e y B o b R a u c h announced a petition launched locally to help slow down FEMA’s issuance of the maps. The petition also calls on the federal agency to reconsider the locally backed data, which FEMA reviewed in 2005. When asked whether the petition could stall the release of the new maps, FEMA floodplain specialist Ryan Ike said after the meeting that he’s never seen that happen, but he didn’t know. Mount Vernon Mayor Bud Norris told the audience that, as a county commissioner in the early 1980s, he saw the local community fight off higher flood elevations. “We went through this exact same process, and eventually at the local government level, we prevailed,” Norris said. “We prevailed for one reason — we were unified.” Another speaker drew attention to a lack of unity now by asking why the county didn’t also made a presentation at the town meeting. County Commissioner Sharon Dillon, who attended the meeting, said afterward that the county hadn’t been invited to present, “and we would have been here if we’d been invited.” Dillon said she agreed with Norris about being unified, but that the commissioners were trying to do what they thought would benefit the county in the long run. “The commissioners, before I came on board, realized that nothing was going to happen money-wise if we didn’t go along with FEMA,” Dillon said. To pay for the large floodcontrol projects that the county wants to construct, the county had to learn to cooperate with the federal agencies. “We found out there’s a time and place where we can fight this, but now is not it,” Dillon said. The local officials’ arguments against the FEMA maps focused on the size of the 100-year flood. They back the work of Edmonds-based engineering neering, which has studied the issue for the county and cities. That firm’s calculation of the Skagit River’s 100-year flood is 246,000 cubic feet per second at Concrete, compared with the number at the heart of the FEMA study: 280,000 cubic feet per second. “We believe that no matter what has gone on in the past, we can prevail if we get a reasoned review,” Martin said. Local builder Greg Murphy of Landed Gentry asked Ike why the agency wasn’t planning to go back and review the locally backed data outside of the appeal process, saying his church and some of his friends would be affected by the new maps. Ike reiterated that the agency already reviewed the data. Local flood historian Larry Kunzler is posting presentations made at Thursday’s meeting on his Web site: skagitriverhistory. com.