11/19/2024 – The time to fully complete half of all FEMA-funded buyouts takes more than five years from disaster to closeout.
The screen capture below was taken from a presentation earlier this month to the Harris County Community Flood Resilience Task Force by Thao Costis, head of Harris County’s Housing and Community Development Department.
Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) steps as shown to Harris County Flood Task Force on 11/6/24. For higher res PDF, click here.
The slide compares the time it takes to pay off an insurance claim (lower left) to the time it takes to complete a buyout (upper right).
The median is the midpoint of a frequency distribution. That means there is an equal probability of any given transaction falling above it or below it.
The thirteen steps involved in the buyout process as federal state and local governments pass information up and down the ladder to each other and homeowners can take more than six years at times. Meanwhile, insurance payouts usually take six months.
80% of Buyouts Go to Those Making Less than Median Income for Region
Sadly, buyouts affect the most vulnerable among us the most often. Approximately half of all buyouts in Harris County go to homeowners that fall into the bottom quartile of the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index.
The bottom two quartiles (those making less than the median income for the region) account for a whopping 80% of all buyouts.
Typically, government agencies buy out homes that flood repetitively. That’s because insurance payouts after multiple floods can easily exceed the cost of a home.
But FEMA doesn’t make it easy. This 68-page PDF details all the procedures involved in a FEMA buyout.
Low-income homeowners generally are the least able to afford insurance and often have higher flood risk.
The higher flood risk can stem from living in older homes, built when less stringent building regulations were in place and when flood risk (or our estimates of it) were lower.
The Case for Business Process Re-Engineering
Regardless of the reason, buyout candidates have few good choices if they don’t have insurance. They may not be able to afford to move or afford fix up their homes. And staying put may entail health risks.
Buyout candidates may also not have the time, skills and financial resources to understand their options, navigate the application process, and wait out bureaucracies.
Buyout flow chart. Where the money comes from, how it gets to homeowners and different types of grants that are available.
Five years is a long time to wait with black mold growing in the walls.
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/FEMA-Buyout-Process.jpg?fit=1100%2C611&ssl=16111100adminadmin2024-11-19 17:51:492024-11-22 14:17:53Half of FEMA-Funded Buyouts Take More Than 5 Years
The article begins, “The Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs) used by FEMA are based on antiquated data and obsolete models.”
Kingwood Town Center during Harvey
Flood Maps Fail to Predict True Flood Risk
Landau then examines a number of storms and locations where FEMA rate maps failed to predict flood damage. She says, “The FIRM maps have extensive problems” from the data they include and exclude “to the limited assumptions around how the maps would be used.”
She quotes Susan Crawford, a senior fellow for sustainability and climate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, as saying “millions of homes should be labeled as high flood risks but aren’t.”
Beyond Climate Change
Landau’s analysis of flood risk goes far beyond climate change – the usual bogeyman.
She tracks the history of FIRMs back to the 1960s and their original objective: to encourage home ownership. Landau examines the data that FIRMs are based on and their built-in sampling bias. She says the location of flood gages near major rivers was expedient at the time. However, basing flood maps on those locations ignores flooding from other sources. Those sources include:
Smaller waterways such as streams, creeks and tributaries
Insufficient drainage infrastructure and mitigation
I touched on all these sources and more in a post titled “Why Do We Flood?”
Landau also touches on political pushback. She told a poignant story about a community that fought new flood risk maps because political leaders feared it would reduce the tax base. Because of this and other complexities that many people remain unaware of, they buy homes without understanding their true flood risk.
Sources Indicate 3X More Homes at Risk than FEMA Shows
Landau quotes Sam Brody, a professor at Texas A&M, who is developing a different approach to modeling with the Texas Division of Emergency Management.
Rather than focus on historical flooding, Brody incorporates these other factors in his models.
High flood risk areas flagged by the Texas system are termed “damage plains rather than flood plains, and they extend for many miles beyond FEMA’s hazard zones,” says Landau. “In fact, the new model determined that three times more structures in the Texas Gulf Coast are actually at high risk of getting inundated.”
So what’s a prospective home buyer to do? Check a variety of sources, starting with FEMA. If you’re going to bet your life savings on a new home, check a variety of sources:
Visit the Institute for a Disaster Resilient Texas “Buyers Aware” website, a cooperative venture of Texas A&M and the Texas Division of Emergency Management. It covers 41 counties in SE Texas including all those in the Houston area.
Flood Risk Reports on My House Varied Radically
When I checked my address, I found radically different estimates of my flood risk.
FEMA showed me far outside of the 500-year floodplain
First Street showed me outside of the danger zone, but not quite as far away. It said I had “mild” flood risk.
Buyers Aware rated my flood risk as “moderate high.”
Flooding three blocks past Kingwood Drive during Harvey, more than 2 miles from the San Jacinto West Fork
Buyers Aware said, “…based on the flood risk variables outlined below, our analysis ranks this site as having a moderate-high flood risk. This is near the top of the highest risk categories included in our model. We strongly encourage you to purchase flood insurance and explore other actions to mitigate your flood risk.”
While this property may not be in the FEMA regulatory floodplain (sometimes referred to as the “100-year floodplain”) our analysis indicates that flood risks may be higher than what is currently measured by the regulatory maps.”
In the National Geographic article, Landau says, “Since the 1990s, over 50% of flood loss in Texas has occurred in areas outside of SFHAs [FEMA’s Special Flood-Hazard Areas].”
Buyers Aware factors in:
Land elevation
Distance to coastline
Distance to streams
Imperviousness
Soil Characteristrics
Height above nearest drainage
Buyers Aware also showed me a map of the neighborhood and told me that within the area shown, “$22,813,736 of flood insurance claims have been paid in the last 10 years.”
That total reflected only properties with active NFIP policies in place. I know people nearby who had five- and six-figure damage during Harvey. But they didn’t have flood insurance policies because they thought they were beyond the 500-year flood zone.
Other Interesting Data that “Buyers Aware” Includes
Buyers Aware also told me that FEMA has 3890 active NFIP policies in my area.
Next they informed me about a 7% increase in impervious surface upstream from me.
Buyers Aware also recommended I buy flood insurance and told me where I could find more information about it. They also listed several flood mitigation strategies such as:
Improving drainage
Retrofitting
Flood barriers
Property elevation
For the Record
For the record, I live 2.1 miles from the San Jacinto West Fork. During Harvey, floodwaters stopped at our driveway. And that’s the main reason I write about flooding in my retirement.
Also for the record, FEMA has set a goal to update all of its FIRMS every ten years and to include climate change in the analysis.
Finally, Harris County Flood Control District’s MAAPnext effort (not yet fully vetted by FEMA) addresses many of the issues addressed by National Geographic and Landau.
But local pushback will always be a problem everywhere. Montgomery County announced an ambitious effort to update its drainage criteria manual after Harvey, but has yet to officially adopt the changes it considered.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 11/18/24
2638 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/IMG_0617-e1617916649512.jpeg?fit=1200%2C856&ssl=18561200adminadmin2024-11-18 17:29:552024-11-19 14:33:19Do You Know Your Home’s True Flood Risk?
11/17/2024 – According to a National Hurricane Center report at 6 AM this morning, slow-moving Tropical Storm Sara has produced around 40 inches of rain in northern Honduras. To put that amount in perspective, it meets or exceeds most Hurricane Harvey totals reported in Harris County during a similar 4-day period.
Harvey 4-Day Totals
Rainfall can vary widely over areas. Harris County Flood Control District’s (HCFCD) final report on Hurricane Harvey shows total Harvey rainfall amounts ranged from 26 to 47 inches across the county during a 4-day period. The lowest totals occurred over the northwest and northeast part of the county with the highest totals focused across the southeast part.
Clear Creek at I-45 saw the maximum 47.4 inches.
San Jacinto at US59 saw 32.7 inches.
Spring Creek at I-45 saw 29.4 inches.
Cypress Creek at Cypresswood Drive saw 34.9 inches
Luce Bayou at FM2100 saw 31.8 inches.
Most places in Harris County reported 4-day totals in the 30-40 inch range. Some were slightly lower, some slightly higher. Clear Creek was the statistical outlier.
Harvey in Historical Perspective
Hurricane Harvey struck the Gulf Coast in August 2017. It was one of the most significant and devastating tropical storms in U.S. history, primarily due to the sheer volume of rainfall it produced.
Harvey’s rainfall ranked among the heaviest ever recorded in the continental United States from a tropical system. The highest peak occurred in Nederland, about 85 miles east of Lake Houston. It still holds the official U.S. record for a single-location rainfall from a tropical storm – 60.58 inches.
Harvey’s rainfall was not only extreme in terms of totals but also in how long the rain persisted. The storm’s slow-moving nature allowed the moisture to be dumped over the same areas for four days, contributing to catastrophic flooding, especially in Houston.
Update on TS Sara
Four days also matches the amount of time Sara has dumped rain over northern Honduras.
Location and size of TS Sara at 7 AM CST
Sara’s heavy rains are now spreading westward across portions of Belize, Guatemala, and the Yucatan Peninsula.
Sara should hold steady in strength with tropical-storm-force winds of around 40 MPH until it moves inland later today. NHC warns that it will likely cause “significant and life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides” across Belize, El Salvador, eastern Guatemala, western Nicaragua, and the Mexican State of Quintana Roo.
Sara is no threat to Houston, but could cause heavy rainfall in Florida later this week after it crosses into the Gulf as a tropical depression.
In mountainous regions, such as northern Honduras, the volume of rain is not the only danger. So is the speed of the runoff as we saw earlier this year when Helene hit North Carolina.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 11/17/24
2637 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Sara-2024-11-17.jpg?fit=1100%2C748&ssl=17481100adminadmin2024-11-17 08:45:332024-11-17 08:53:06TS Sara Rainfall Totals Meeting, Exceeding Hurricane Harvey’s
Half of FEMA-Funded Buyouts Take More Than 5 Years
11/19/2024 – The time to fully complete half of all FEMA-funded buyouts takes more than five years from disaster to closeout.
The screen capture below was taken from a presentation earlier this month to the Harris County Community Flood Resilience Task Force by Thao Costis, head of Harris County’s Housing and Community Development Department.
The slide compares the time it takes to pay off an insurance claim (lower left) to the time it takes to complete a buyout (upper right).
The median is the midpoint of a frequency distribution. That means there is an equal probability of any given transaction falling above it or below it.
The thirteen steps involved in the buyout process as federal state and local governments pass information up and down the ladder to each other and homeowners can take more than six years at times. Meanwhile, insurance payouts usually take six months.
80% of Buyouts Go to Those Making Less than Median Income for Region
Sadly, buyouts affect the most vulnerable among us the most often. Approximately half of all buyouts in Harris County go to homeowners that fall into the bottom quartile of the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index.
The bottom two quartiles (those making less than the median income for the region) account for a whopping 80% of all buyouts.
Typically, government agencies buy out homes that flood repetitively. That’s because insurance payouts after multiple floods can easily exceed the cost of a home.
But FEMA doesn’t make it easy. This 68-page PDF details all the procedures involved in a FEMA buyout.
Low-income homeowners generally are the least able to afford insurance and often have higher flood risk.
The higher flood risk can stem from living in older homes, built when less stringent building regulations were in place and when flood risk (or our estimates of it) were lower.
The Case for Business Process Re-Engineering
Regardless of the reason, buyout candidates have few good choices if they don’t have insurance. They may not be able to afford to move or afford fix up their homes. And staying put may entail health risks.
Buyout candidates may also not have the time, skills and financial resources to understand their options, navigate the application process, and wait out bureaucracies.
Five years is a long time to wait with black mold growing in the walls.
It’s a classic case for business process re-engineering which buyouts desperately need.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 11/19/2024
2639 Days since Hurricane Harvey
Do You Know Your Home’s True Flood Risk?
11/18/24 – Do you know your home’s true flood risk? In October, National Geographic ran an insightful article by Meryl Davids Landau titled “Many Americans are buying homes in flood zones – and don’t realize it.”
The article begins, “The Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs) used by FEMA are based on antiquated data and obsolete models.”
Flood Maps Fail to Predict True Flood Risk
Landau then examines a number of storms and locations where FEMA rate maps failed to predict flood damage. She says, “The FIRM maps have extensive problems” from the data they include and exclude “to the limited assumptions around how the maps would be used.”
She quotes Susan Crawford, a senior fellow for sustainability and climate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, as saying “millions of homes should be labeled as high flood risks but aren’t.”
Beyond Climate Change
Landau’s analysis of flood risk goes far beyond climate change – the usual bogeyman.
She tracks the history of FIRMs back to the 1960s and their original objective: to encourage home ownership. Landau examines the data that FIRMs are based on and their built-in sampling bias. She says the location of flood gages near major rivers was expedient at the time. However, basing flood maps on those locations ignores flooding from other sources. Those sources include:
I touched on all these sources and more in a post titled “Why Do We Flood?”
Landau also touches on political pushback. She told a poignant story about a community that fought new flood risk maps because political leaders feared it would reduce the tax base. Because of this and other complexities that many people remain unaware of, they buy homes without understanding their true flood risk.
Sources Indicate 3X More Homes at Risk than FEMA Shows
Landau quotes Sam Brody, a professor at Texas A&M, who is developing a different approach to modeling with the Texas Division of Emergency Management.
Rather than focus on historical flooding, Brody incorporates these other factors in his models.
High flood risk areas flagged by the Texas system are termed “damage plains rather than flood plains, and they extend for many miles beyond FEMA’s hazard zones,” says Landau. “In fact, the new model determined that three times more structures in the Texas Gulf Coast are actually at high risk of getting inundated.”
So what’s a prospective home buyer to do? Check a variety of sources, starting with FEMA. If you’re going to bet your life savings on a new home, check a variety of sources:
Flood Risk Reports on My House Varied Radically
When I checked my address, I found radically different estimates of my flood risk.
Buyers Aware said, “…based on the flood risk variables outlined below, our analysis ranks this site as having a moderate-high flood risk. This is near the top of the highest risk categories included in our model. We strongly encourage you to purchase flood insurance and explore other actions to mitigate your flood risk.”
While this property may not be in the FEMA regulatory floodplain (sometimes referred to as the “100-year floodplain”) our analysis indicates that flood risks may be higher than what is currently measured by the regulatory maps.”
In the National Geographic article, Landau says, “Since the 1990s, over 50% of flood loss in Texas has occurred in areas outside of SFHAs [FEMA’s Special Flood-Hazard Areas].”
Buyers Aware factors in:
Buyers Aware also showed me a map of the neighborhood and told me that within the area shown, “$22,813,736 of flood insurance claims have been paid in the last 10 years.”
That total reflected only properties with active NFIP policies in place. I know people nearby who had five- and six-figure damage during Harvey. But they didn’t have flood insurance policies because they thought they were beyond the 500-year flood zone.
Other Interesting Data that “Buyers Aware” Includes
Buyers Aware also told me that FEMA has 3890 active NFIP policies in my area.
Next they informed me about a 7% increase in impervious surface upstream from me.
Buyers Aware also recommended I buy flood insurance and told me where I could find more information about it. They also listed several flood mitigation strategies such as:
For the Record
For the record, I live 2.1 miles from the San Jacinto West Fork. During Harvey, floodwaters stopped at our driveway. And that’s the main reason I write about flooding in my retirement.
Also for the record, FEMA has set a goal to update all of its FIRMS every ten years and to include climate change in the analysis.
Finally, Harris County Flood Control District’s MAAPnext effort (not yet fully vetted by FEMA) addresses many of the issues addressed by National Geographic and Landau.
But local pushback will always be a problem everywhere. Montgomery County announced an ambitious effort to update its drainage criteria manual after Harvey, but has yet to officially adopt the changes it considered.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 11/18/24
2638 Days since Hurricane Harvey
TS Sara Rainfall Totals Meeting, Exceeding Hurricane Harvey’s
11/17/2024 – According to a National Hurricane Center report at 6 AM this morning, slow-moving Tropical Storm Sara has produced around 40 inches of rain in northern Honduras. To put that amount in perspective, it meets or exceeds most Hurricane Harvey totals reported in Harris County during a similar 4-day period.
Harvey 4-Day Totals
Rainfall can vary widely over areas. Harris County Flood Control District’s (HCFCD) final report on Hurricane Harvey shows total Harvey rainfall amounts ranged from 26 to 47 inches across the county during a 4-day period. The lowest totals occurred over the northwest and northeast part of the county with the highest totals focused across the southeast part.
Most places in Harris County reported 4-day totals in the 30-40 inch range. Some were slightly lower, some slightly higher. Clear Creek was the statistical outlier.
Harvey in Historical Perspective
Hurricane Harvey struck the Gulf Coast in August 2017. It was one of the most significant and devastating tropical storms in U.S. history, primarily due to the sheer volume of rainfall it produced.
Harvey’s rainfall ranked among the heaviest ever recorded in the continental United States from a tropical system. The highest peak occurred in Nederland, about 85 miles east of Lake Houston. It still holds the official U.S. record for a single-location rainfall from a tropical storm – 60.58 inches.
Harvey’s rainfall was not only extreme in terms of totals but also in how long the rain persisted. The storm’s slow-moving nature allowed the moisture to be dumped over the same areas for four days, contributing to catastrophic flooding, especially in Houston.
Update on TS Sara
Four days also matches the amount of time Sara has dumped rain over northern Honduras.
Sara’s heavy rains are now spreading westward across portions of Belize, Guatemala, and the Yucatan Peninsula.
Sara should hold steady in strength with tropical-storm-force winds of around 40 MPH until it moves inland later today. NHC warns that it will likely cause “significant and life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides” across Belize, El Salvador, eastern Guatemala, western Nicaragua, and the Mexican State of Quintana Roo.
Sara is no threat to Houston, but could cause heavy rainfall in Florida later this week after it crosses into the Gulf as a tropical depression.
In mountainous regions, such as northern Honduras, the volume of rain is not the only danger. So is the speed of the runoff as we saw earlier this year when Helene hit North Carolina.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 11/17/24
2637 Days since Hurricane Harvey