FEMA releases updated flood maps for 4 New Jersey counties
Thousands of homes along New Jersey’s coastline have been shifted out of the most at-risk flood zone, according to revised maps posted online during the weekend by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Find Out Your Advisory Base
Flood Elevation: CLICK HERE
A spokesman for the federal agency declined to comment on the data Sunday, except to say the revised maps for Atlantic, Hudson, Monmouth and Ocean counties officially would be released today. But local officials said the updated maps significantly reduce the scope of areas susceptible to major waves, known as “V” zones. Homes in those zones must be elevated on pilings, which could cost tens of thousands of dollars more than raising a home in less at-risk areas.
“I am absolutely thrilled,” Brick Mayor Stephen Acropolis said Sunday, but he added, “I was hoping that it wouldn’t have taken this long.”
The federal agency provided advisory maps late last year to serve as guidance for storm victims rebuilding in Hurricane Sandy’s wake, but residents and officials balked at the expansion of the “V” zone.
The number of homes in the high-risk area in Brick jumped from 400 to 4,000 in the advisory maps, a designation that left many homeowners unsure whether they could afford to rebuild, Acropolis said.
Acropolis said he expects at least 3,000 homes to have been moved back into the “A” zone in the updated maps. For “a lot of those people,” he said, “it’s going to be giving them an opportunity to move forward.
Search the new FEMA flood maps: CLICK HERE
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has released updated flood maps for four New Jersey counties — Atlantic, Hudson, Monmouth and Ocean. These maps are meant to supersede the Advisory Base Flood Elevations released earlier by the agency. Zoom in or search by address in the interactive map below to see the new flood zones.
“We’re gearing up now for a flood of building permits,” Acropolis said.
But homeowners still face other obstacles as they rebuild, Acropolis said.
“With these maps, there are so many other issues that are going to have to be addressed,” he said, like finding enough money and available contractors to complete repairs. “It’s just a small battle. It’s not the war.”
Other local officials also cheered the removal of large swaths of coastal communities from the high-risk flood zone.
In Sea Bright, Mayor Dina Long said the working maps left very few borough homes in the “V” zone. Homes in the downtown area have been rezoned and now require homeowners to lift their houses to around 7 to 9 feet, instead of about 13 or 14 feet, Long said.
They also no longer have to move their houses or use a costly, screwlike form of pilings called helical piles during the elevation work, she said.
“It’s still a challenge, but at least it doesn’t seem impossible,” Long said.
The maps provided hope for Alan Sum and Sue DiMassa, a couple who live on Surf Street in Sea Bright. Their home, already elevated 10 feet above sea level, would have had to be raised several feet higher on pilings had it stayed in the “V” zone.
“We bought this house because we knew it was already high,” said DiMassa, a 32-year-old occupational therapist. “I guess it just wasn’t high enough.”
Elevating the home further would mean “destroying everything” that supported the house, Sum said, and it would mean being displaced a second time because the home would have to be moved while the pilings are installed.
But the couple believe their home complies with the revised base-flood elevations, ending months of anxiety.
“Financially, we can breathe easier now,” said Sum, a 32-year-old project manager.
Raising a home in a “V” zone could cost up to $30,000 more than in an “A” zone, said Jim Matarazzo, an architect who founded Coastal Architecture Design Build.
So the reduction in the highest-risk flood zone translates into a substantial savings for many homeowners. “Now that it’s just a lift on block, it’s much cheaper,” he said.
Matarazzo, who owns a Sandy-damaged home in the Shore Acres section of Brick, said that although the revised maps moved his waterfront property out of the “V” zone, he still plans to build his new home to those standards.
“(The maps) show the “V” zone coming right up to the bulkhead,” he said. “I’m definitely going to stick the pilings on my house.”
Toms River Mayor Thomas Kelaher said the revised maps also decreased the expansive “V” zone in his town.
“It looks like pretty much the entire mainland and parts of the beach areas have been changed from a ‘V’ to ‘A,’ ” he said.
Kelaher said he’d have a better handle of the exact number of homes moved back into the “A” zone today, but a news release published on the township’s website Friday said FEMA indicated there had been at least a 40-50 percent reduction in the “V” zone in Toms River.
“We’re anticipating this is going to cause a rush on the town hall building department,” Kelaher said. So Toms River, like Brick, is readying more resources to handle the anticipated surge in demand.
George Kasimos, a Toms River resident and founder of the group Stop FEMA Now, said the revised maps look like the “first good news we had since Sandy. It looks like a majority of the homes that are not on the bayfront or the oceanfront have been reduced to ‘A’ zone and some of the elevations have actually been lowered.”
But Kasimos — whose home was moved out of the “V” zone — said the good news follows months of uncertainty for homeowners.
“If they had this information seven months ago, they could have already been in their house,” he said. “Now they’re saying I might be able to afford it, maybe, and now I can start rebuilding.”
Find Out Your Advisory Base Flood Elevation:
CLICK HERE
No comments:
Post a Comment