ROANOKE CO., Va. – What may just look like lines on a man, could mean hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year for some homeowners.
New preliminary flood maps released by the Federal Emergency Management Agency expand or redraw flood zones in some areas. This could affect homeowners across the region, potentially changing insurance requirements and property values.
Roanoke County is urging residents to review where their property falls on the maps before FEMA finalizes them in the spring. County officials are holding open house meetings to walk residents through the changes and answer questions.
“We see people that were at 12 hundred dollars that may be at 4 thousand dollars a year now,” said Chris Greene, founder and owner of Flood Insurance Guru. Greene says changes to mapping can mean large increases in annual costs for some homeowners.
“A lot of folks have been concerned. Am I going to have to have flood insurance? That’s the biggest question, short answer is if your house in not in the flood plain then you don’t need flood insurance,” said Nickie Mills, Roanoke County Floodplain Administrator.
“Other questions are generally, why did FEMA change the maps? What’s new? A lot of the data that goes into making the flood maps is 20 years newer.”
Tarek Moneir, Roanoke County Director of Development Services, said the county wants residents to understand both the financial and property implications of the new maps.
“Probably they’re interested in the value of their property, is it gonna go up or down and number two, what do they have to know about coverage.”
Homeowners with federally backed mortgages could see new insurance requirements if their homes fall inside newly designated flood zones.
“Think of each property like a social security number, they’re unique,” Greene explained. “You’re gonna have what I call the good, the bad, the ugly. The good may be people who are moving out of required area to non required, the ugly would be people who are moving from a non-required to required.”
These maps aren’t final yet. You still have time to review the map before seeing a surprise cost later, or file an appeal if you believe your property is incorrectly mapped.
“They can contact us by phone, by email, they can examine or look at our GIS mapping its online, we’ll be able to answer their questions to the best of our ability,” said Moneir.
If you missed the last open-house meetings with Roanoke County, you can attend the next session on March 3rd at the Glenver Library in Salem.
Resource list:
- You can view the preliminary maps here to see the changes.
- You can find your property’s flood zone with Flood Insurance Guru here.
- Roanoke County’s flood risk notification letter.
- You can file an appeal or comment to FEMA here. It’s recommended to speak with your Floodplain Administrator first.
- You can find Tarek Moneir, Roanoke County Director of Development services, contact page here.
- You can find Nickie Mills, Roanoke County Floodplain Administrator, contact page here.
- You can view the current FEMA maps here.
- Chris Greene offers advice on how to read this map, “You can go to FEMA.gov they have what’s called a FEMA flood map service and you can put your address in it and it’s gonna show you where you show up on this map. What you’re looking for is the blue areas, if you’re in the blue area you’re gonna be required to carry flood insurance, if you’re in the brown or gray area, you’re probably not gonna be required to carry it. If you see an area that’s kind of shaded red, that means you’re in the flood way, this is the area where flood insurance can be very expensive because a flood way is the overflow source of a river, creek or whatever. If you’re looking at buying property or buying land and building there you probably wont be able to build there because of that.”