WEST MEMPHIS — Crittenden County officials received a 90-day extension to adopt a new federal flood insurance plan that will raise premiums for thousands Monday after a heated meeting among residents and Federal Emergency Management Agency Director W. Craig Fugate.
The county and its cities had until July 6 to pass ordinances accepting the agency’s Flood Insurance Rate Maps, but Fugate’s extension now gives officials until Oct. 6.
“I’m listening to you. I got it,” Fugate told at least 600 people who attended the meeting in Magruder Hall on the Mid South Community College campus.
Near the end of the 1 1 /2-hour meeting, West Memphis Mayor William Johnson asked Fugate for more time to study flood plain maps and to clarify confusions about who would have to pay increased premiums.
Fugate nodded.
“Mayor, you’ve got your 90 days,” he said.
In those 90 days, FEMA officials will look over its flood plain maps again and decide whether to propose changes.
After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and good parts of the Gulf Coast in 2005, Congress mandated that FEMA re-evaluate areas prone to flooding - especially those in a 100-year flood risk, which means that there is a 1 percent chance of a major flood each year. FEMA established larger flood plain areas. Residents and businesses could face higher premiums.
Arkansas, which endured major floods in 2008, is one of the first states to be required by FEMA to adopt the new maps.
If cities and counties do not accept the program, residents and business owners would be suspended and not allowed to purchase federal flood insurance.
Blytheville in Mississippi County passed several ordinances in April that regulate how and where new houses and buildings can be built after facing a June 18 deadline for the FEMA program.
Before FEMA granted the 90-day extension, Crittenden County officials had feared the changes would mean numerous residents and business owners would be forced to pay much higher premiums to receive federal flood insurance because they would be placed inside flood plains.
Fugate arrived to a packed room. The crowd even overflowed in the hall, where people stood and sweated in the heat.
“When you mess with our area, it gets our attention,” U.S. Rep. Marion Berry, D-Ark., said when introducing Fugate to the crowd.
At times, the audience grew testy, challenging Fugate and Sandra Knight, a FEMA mitigation administrator.
“I want a yes or no,” one woman in the audience demanded. “Will I have to pay more?”
Others questioned the new map, which added a large area of the St. Francis River Basin into the flood plain.
“Why are you designating us a flood plain when we aren’t a flood plain,” a man asked angrily, referring to a Mississippi River levee system that traverses from the tip of northeast Arkansas to Helena-West Helena.
“Our levee has not had a breach or overtopped in 83 years,” said Rob Rash, director of the St. Francis Levee District. “Not one acre has flooded where the levee was designed. It’s a $30 billion system.”
Fugate admitted that some areas protected by that levee are now in the new designated flood plain, but not because of Mississippi River flooding. He said storm water runoff has increased with new construction in areas, causing more local flooding.
“It’s because of the backflow,” Fugate said. “Water will run to the lowest areas. You get a heavy rainfall like Arkansas’s gotten recently and it’ll flood.”
Several mayors and aldermen from east Arkansas criticized FEMA for failing to communicate with residents about the proposed changes.Knight said FEMA representatives met with city officials on several occasions, but mayors of several Crittenden and Mississippi county towns said they never saw any representatives.
“I never was contacted,” said Osceola Mayor Dickie Kennemore.
“This is a disgrace to push this down our throats when you don’t even know what you’re talking about,” Johnson said when asking Fugate to extend the deadline for the county to participate.
When Knight said FEMA representatives may have spoken with other Osceola officials on Kennemore’s behalf, the crowd booed her.
“I’ve not seen hide nor hair of FEMA,”Rash said. “This is my home. Don’t go there.”
Berry leaned over to Knight as the crowd hooted with disgust and called her a “liar.”
Later, Berry, who has been outspoken in his criticism of FEMA for years, said Knight was presenting wrong information.
“They are confusing themselves,” he said after the meeting. “They don’t even know the impact of what they are doing.
“The bottom line is he [Fugate] doesn’t know what ... the maps do. The issue here is what needs to be protected.”
FEMA officials will be available with the currently drafted Flood Insurance Maps - which now could be changed after the 90-day review - at West Memphis City Hall at 5:30 p.m. today for the public to inspect.
Fugate said he expected the hostile reaction to his visit Monday, but opted to come anyway.
“Flood insurance is confusing,” he said after the meeting. “We’re talking about people having to pay more. It’s scary. Times are tough.”
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 06/22/2010