Flood Insurance Rate Maps Slip for Fourth Straight Year
9/6/2025 – On August 26, 2025, Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) transmitted an update to Commissioners Court on the release of new flood insurance rate maps. The update showed the release date slipping yet again. This makes at least the seventh postponement in four years.
The amount of time it’s taking FEMA to vet the maps may now exceed the time it took HCFCD to create the maps.
Visual Chronology of Updates
Below are seven screen captures that I took from MAAPnext’s website, presentations and transmittals through the years.
By November 2022, the release was an unspecified date sometime in 2023, a much larger window.
Keep in mind that it can take another 2-3 years for the preliminary maps to go through public review, public comment, appeals and become the final “effective” maps.
Here’s the full update presented to Commissioners Court on 8/26/25.
Why the Delays?
Many different groups depend on having the best information available. They include, but are not limited to:
- Developers
- Home builders
- Home buyers
- Home sellers
- Lenders
- Realtors
- Politicians
- The National Flood Insurance Program
In some cases, their interests may be diametrically opposed.
Delays may help some in the short term. However, in the long term, sound public policy must rest on data, not delusions.
HCFCD does not have to wait for FEMA to release MAAPnext data. The District could make it publicly available with the flip of a software switch today.
If FEMA wants to change something, HCFCD can modify its maps later. But at least in the meantime, all those interests above could make decisions based on the best available data.
Harris County Appraisal District and HAR.com report that 85,163 single-family homes sold in Harris County in 2024. The same HAR report gives a total dollar volume of $41.1 billion in 2024 for single-family home sales in the Houston region. And those numbers do not even include townhomes, condos, or commercial real estate.
I would urge anyone who suspects they may have purchased a home in a floodplain that isn’t currently shown in a floodplain – or anyone considering purchasing a home – to complain to the Texas Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors.
If they start yanking licenses, we may quickly see maps more current than those developed 24 years ago after Tropical Storm Allison.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 9/6/25
2930 Days since Hurricane Harvey
The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.
