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Residents could save on flood-insurance policies

The Community Rating System, used by the National Flood Insurance Program, provides flood insurance discounts to communities that pass building codes and enforce regulations aimed at reducing risk.

Discounts are based on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the best and receiving a 45 percent discount. A 10 is the worst, resulting in no discount. A community not participating in the program is rated 10. Participation is free and voluntary.

Terrebonne currently has a 7 rating, giving residents a 15 percent discount on flood insurance. The parish has received unofficial notice from FEMA that its rating will be change to a 6 beginning in October, lowering the cost of flood insurance for residents by 20 percent, Parish Planning and Zoning Director Pat Gordon

said.

Lafourche Parish does not participate and receives no flood-insurance discounts.

FEMA inspects communities every five years to make sure they comply with National Flood Insurance Program regulations. The federal agency looks to see if buildings are properly elevated, the necessary permits were secured and all building rules followed, said Michael Hunnicutt, deputy section chief for FEMA’s hazard-mitigation office. The Community Resiliancy Program rewards parishes that go above and beyond those standards.

“It helps save money, lowers flood-insurance costs, encourages safe building, smarter construction and mitigates against future risk,” Hunnicutt said.

The lower rating is due to the parish’s work educating locals about flood-risk management, aggressively pursuing elevation grant money and performing regular maintenance of levees and drainage. The parish also tracks flood damage to properties, requiring those with repeated damage to elevate or sell and move to higher ground.

Properties bought by the parish are converted to green space so no others build on high-risk land, Gordon said.

Terrebonne Parish President Michel Claudet said his administration has worked hard to improve the parish’s rating. It was an 8 when he entered office, and it dropped to a 7 in 2009.

Letter to the Editor - The Beebe News

Dear Editor,

This letter is in response to Mayor  Mike Robertson’s letter last week.

If you have been reading this paper the last few years you would have read about the differences the Mayor and I have had over the flooding concerns in Beebe. But the Mayor is correct about what happened at the trial. The attorney for the Union Pacific Railroad spent the majority of his time attacking the homeowners and the city with his conclusion that they were the ones who caused the flooding, as if the houses had never been built then there would have been no flooding.

Mr. McKay, attorney for UPRR, stated that Roswell Beebe would be rolling over in his grave because the city was blaming the railroad , the  city which was named after him would fault the railroad for the flooding. But who was Roswell Beebe? He, along with others formed a company to build a railroad from Missouri to Argenta. For their efforts the state awarded them over one million acres to build the railroad. Furthermore  the citizens of Beebe never named the city after Mr. Beebe but the railroad named the fueling station for him and this station later became the city of Beebe.

The main witnesses for the UPRR were their own employees but the courtroom never heard that Union Pacific has been fined by the federal government for violating the rights of employees after they raised safety concerns, including track safety issues. These employees were fired or suspended by UPRR. The government ruled that UPRR had a problem of retaliation against workers who made safety issues of the railroad known.

One of the witnesses for the railroad claimed to be on the railroad  Christmas Eve, the night of the flood, but didn’t take any pictures because for some reason the camera he had did not work. Nor did he take any measurements of the flood waters of either side of the tracks during this time but claimed he knew from which direction the flood water approached the tracks.

At no time did the railroad  explain why it did not receive floodplain development permits for the work it has done to its tracks in the floodplain. All the railroad could do is to blame the city and the citizens of Beebe.

Flood

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