Flood Recovery Guidance Posted Online For Southern Parishes
Release Date: April 25, 2006
Release Number: 1603-450
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NEW ORLEANS, La. -- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has released flood recovery guidance documents for Jefferson, Orleans and St. Bernard parishes as well as portions of Plaquemines and St. Charles parishes in southern Louisiana. The new work joins previously released guidance information available online at www.fema.gov.
The documents are Advisory Base Flood Elevations, known as ABFEs. They provide communities the critical engineering data they can use to make the best decisions on rebuilding safety. They are important tools in the work to rebuild and enhance structures to withstand a one-percent annual chance flood.
- St. Charles Parish, which received advisory guidance from FEMA for areas outside the levee last fall, now has interior levee information as well.
- The guidance for Plaquemines Parish includes the levee-protected area of Belle Chasse and all areas outside of levee protection in the parish. However, additional time will be needed to study the levee protected areas of lower Plaquemines Parish to make further determinations about the protection systems and thus rebuilding elevation guidance.
- The guidance documents show two main areas: interior levee and open coast. Within the interior levee areas of these parishes, FEMA recommendations reflect substantial progress made on the levees by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. FEMA recommends substantially damaged homes and businesses protected by levees elevate three feet, or follow what is shown on the current effective flood insurance rate map, whichever is higher.
- For substantially damaged buildings outside levee-protected areas in these parishes, FEMA recommends what is shown on the current effective flood insurance rate map (FIRM), plus one to three additional feet in elevation, depending on parish location.
- FEMA provides advisory information to local governments, but ultimately state and local officials, working with their citizens, make final decisions on land use and other building code requirements.
- Flood recovery guidance takes into account storm data from the past 35 years including hurricanes Katrina and Rita, as well as coastal land loss, degradation of coastal barriers and subsidence, or sinking land.
- Previously, guidance for areas impacted by hurricanes Katrina and Rita was issued and posted online for Calcasieu, Cameron, Iberia, Lafourche, St. John the Baptist, St. Mary, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Terrebonne, Vermillion and portions of St. Charles parishes in southern Louisiana; and Hancock, Harrison and Jackson counties in Mississippi.
- The flood recovery guidance documents provide Advisory Base Flood Elevations which are an interim product to assist communities in their rebuilding efforts while new preliminary FIRMs are being completed and provided to the communities for comment by the end of this year.
FEMA manages federal response and recovery efforts following any national incident. FEMA also initiates mitigation activities, works with state and local emergency managers, and manages the National Flood Insurance Program. FEMA became part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on March 1, 2003
Last Modified: Tuesday, 25-Apr-2006 11:39:38