The Southwest Florida Water Management District is working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to update flood hazard maps in DeSoto and Hardee counties.
Governments, insurance companies and individuals all use FEMA flood insurance rate maps, or FIRMs, to identify flooding risk and to plan for potential flooding. With the updated flood maps, communities can better manage development in and around floodplains and prepare for and mitigate against flood disaster; insurance companies can better assess risks and calculate flood insurance premiums accordingly; and home and business owners can make better decisions about protecting their property from flood damage and/or related expenses.
The counties were chosen by FEMA and the District based on the number of insurance policies in each county, and the date of the data used to create the current maps. In some cases, the data is 20 years old. Other factors include population, current and projected growth, availability of new data to identify flooding risk, and FEMA ranking of communities. FEMA funding for these projects builds upon the District’s Comprehensive Watershed Management Initiative, Watershed Management Program efforts that are under way to provide updated digital maps, or DFIRMs, across the District.
The District became a cooperating technical partner on this project with FEMA in August 2005. As a cooperating technical partner, the District is eligible to receive federal grants to work with FEMA and local communities to update and modernize the FIRMs within the District. In addition to updating the data used for the Flood Insurance Studies (FIS) that the FIRMs are based on, one of the goals is to modernize the maps into a digital product. The DFIRMs will be available on the Internet. Eventually, all the counties within the District and the state will have new DFIRMs. The projected finish date for all counties within the District is 2012.
Desoto
The first phase for DeSoto County has been completed. During this phase, the entire county was flown over with light detection and ranging laser-based technology (LiDAR) to collect digital topographic information. The District is currently reviewing the LiDAR information.
The District will soon begin meeting with Desoto County and City of Arcadia staff to prepare a draft scope of project based on community mapping needs and initial research of available data. Afterwards, a scoping meeting will be held with community staff and officials and various stakeholder groups to prioritize each watershed, justify how each watershed within the county will be studied, and prepare the final scope of project. The District will use the final scope of the project to contract with pre-qualified consultants to perform the floodplain analyses, prepare the new DFIRMs, and conduct community outreach.
The District has received $770,000 from FEMA for the DeSoto County map modernization effort. The District and local cooperators have contributed more than $870,000 toward updating and modernizing the FIRMs and FIS.
Hardee
Similar to Desoto County, digital topographic information for all of Hardee County has been collected using LiDAR. The District is currently reviewing the LiDAR information. Within the next month the District will begin meeting with Hardee County, the City of Wauchula, City of Zolfo Spring, and City of Bowling Green staff to prepare a draft scope of project based on community mapping needs and initial research of available data. Afterwards, a scoping meeting will be held with community staff and officials and various stakeholder groups to prioritize each watershed, justify how each watershed within the county will be studied, and prepare the final scope of project. The District will use the final scope of project to contract with pre-qualified consultants to perform new floodplain analyses, prepare the new DFIRMs, and conduct community outreach.
The District has received $737,000 from FEMA for the Hardee County map modernization effort. To date the District and local cooperators have contributed more than $1 million toward updating and modernizing the FIRMs and FIS.