D e s e r t E x p o s u r e June 2010

The Flood Next Time

With monsoon season right around the corner, an update to Grant County's flood-zone maps overflows with surprises for property owners.

By David A. Fryxell

Jim Druffel was just looking for a place to park his vintage Airstream trailers. That's how he found out that Silver City's flood-zone maps had recently been updated, and part of his property on Pine Street — the part where he'd planned to park the Airstreams — lies right where local authorities and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) say the next big flood could pour through.

Druffel isn't alone: According to Bud Melaney, Floodplain Manager for the town of Silver City, the matching of old flood maps with new aerial imagery helped reveal a "surprising undercount" in properties all or partly in the floodway of either Silva Creek or Pinos Altos Creek. The number of affected residential properties jumped from about 40 to roughly 120, while commercial properties (including outbuildings) soared from 15 to more than 100.

"Because I didn't have to go out and beat the bushes to see what lies in the floodway, there was a huge jump," says Melaney. "My reaction was, 'Holy crap!'"

That was pretty much Druffel's reaction, too. Last fall, he received a letter from the town's Code Enforcement Office about a complaint lodged regarding the Airstreams on his lot. Druffel collects the classic old trailers. "Some people like old cars. We like old motorhomes," he explains. "We'd bought the house in part as a place to store them."

After a cordial meeting with town officials after the holidays to discuss the complaint, a potentially much bigger problem surfaced. "Bud has something to tell you," Druffel was told. That's when Melaney explained that the part of the Pine Street lot where they'd hoped to park the trailers was actually in the flood zone. Once town ordinances — now awaiting action by the council — are updated, Druffel wouldn't be allowed to park anything there.

"When we get monsoons, we get maybe 15 minutes' notice of a flood," Melaney says. "It's not like places where you watch the water slowly rise. Here, it's a wall of water roaring down a canyon. In a flood, vehicles become debris. And who cleans that up? Usually it's the town."

Druffel says he'll be "OK" with the Airstream issue, but worries about other property owners who may now find themselves unable to get building permits to expand or improve structures in the flood zone. Others may not be able to get a mortgage or refinance a loan without the added cost of flood insurance. Following a 7% to 9% rate hike last fall, flood insurance can now cost $1,000 a year for every $100,000 in mortgage debt.

Druffel learned of his floodway problem purely by accident. If your property is affected by the updated maps, no one will officially notify you. There's no way to automatically send letters to every affected property owner, Melaney says; it would have to be done by hand, and there would still be the common Silver City problem of addresses where the mail goes instead to a PO box — not to mention absentee property owners.

Commercial property is even more complicated, and Melaney says he suspects that many such owners along Highway 180 West have no idea their land is in a flood zone. Stretches of Highway 180 East are also at risk; the Albertson's supermarket, for example, is in a High Risk location, according to FEMA.

"I've got some brochures," Melaney adds, "and I might just go house to house in the areas where it's an issue."

Druffel suggests, "There should be a public meeting for all the people affected. Notify people, that's what the town needs to do."

He's recently taken it upon himself to notify one of his neighbors, whose lot sits far more into the flood zone than Druffel's. The neighbor, he says, seemed stunned by the bad news.

The good news is that FEMA and local officials now have a much more accurate picture of what areas might be in the path of a so-called 100-year or 500-year flood. Until now, flood-zone maps were riddled with errors; a floodway might have included a huge swath that's actually 10 feet up a hill. Silver City last got a fine-tuning of its flood maps in 1997; other parts of the county, which now are also getting updated maps, were "stuck with sketch made in 1972," Melaney says.

The update is part of a FEMA modernization program that's digitizing paper maps of floodways (the actual path of a creek or river when it rises) and floodplains (adjacent areas that also get wet, depending on how high the water gets). That digitizing allows the maps — which haven't themselves changed much locally — to be matched to aerial photos. Grant County got a photographic flyover in 2009 as part of a state geography program.

In early November 2009, Melaney made the new flood maps available for public review and comment. That inaugurated an appeal process via FEMA, through Jan. 19. Nine public protests or appeals were filed, along with three that Melaney filed based on issues he spotted. In the appeal process, FEMA is assumed to be right unless proven otherwise; property owners have to do their homework, typically involving a survey and/or engineering study.

"You can't just say, 'My father lived there and my grandfather lived there and it never flooded,'" Melaney notes.

Once FEMA has ruled on the appeals and other filings, a final map will be issued. Originally expected by next month, that's now scheduled for December.

Simultaneously, Melaney has added three pages to the town ordinances, putting some "teeth" into regulations regarding property in a floodway. Trailers like Druffel's would be ruled out, for example. Property owners wishing to improve or add structures in a floodway would have to meet a "higher standard" and invest in engineering studies; in most cases, such projects are unlikely to fly.

Besides risk to property owners, the problem with construction in a floodway is liability, Melaney explains. Officials aren't worried just about your garage washing away if they approve it — what about the damage to your neighbor's property when your garage goes sailing? What if your construction changes the stream channel, so a flood now wipes out the place next door?

"The courts have really put the burden on the community," Melaney says, adding that he researched how other municipalities have dealt with floodway issues before proposing the ordinance changes.

Those changes have already passed the Planning and Zoning Commission, but have yet to be taken up by the Town Council. The council will also have to formally approve the new maps; in New Mexico, unlike most states, it's not automatic.

Different ordinances cover property beyond the town limits, such as in the Extra-Territorial Jurisdiction immediately adjacent to the town or in unincorporated areas of Grant County. Other towns such as Bayard have their own rules.

The other concern if you find your property lies in an area of potential flooding is insurance. Says Melaney, "Lenders contract with hundreds of different mapping companies. On any federally regulated loan, if it's in a hazard area, they'll want you to get flood insurance; I can't blame them, since lenders are trying to protect their money.

"Refinancing can trigger an audit, too. Then, boom! You're red-flagged. It can also come up in the sale of a home, as part of full disclosure if there's a boundary survey."

If you buy or sell a home for cash, however, New Mexico doesn't require a new boundary survey. That can mean a nasty surprise later if a buyer fails to do due diligence and doesn't discover that a property overlaps with a floodway.

The FEMA maps lay out three different flood zones, each with a different probability of flooding and resultant damage. Locally, both Silva Creek and Pinos Altos Creek are flood-prone; the worst-case, "100-year" scenario in which both flood is unlikely, Melaney says, because the two watersheds are far apart. Local ordinances don't regulate the least-likely, "500-year" flood zone, but that doesn't mean mortgage companies might not require flood insurance for such properties.

"Everybody understands homeowner's insurance," Melaney adds, "but people always try to wriggle out of flood insurance."

The stakes are high. Even a one-foot difference in flooding potential — either because of the terrain or how a structure is built — can mean a one-third difference in flood-insurance premiums.

At the moment, Melaney says, there are only 53 policies under the federal flood-insurance program in all of Silver City. And there have been only three insurance payouts here since the flood-insurance program was instituted in 1968; the most recent, in 1999, was for flooding off North Silver Street, where Oak Street dead-ends on Pinos Altos Creek.

But you never know — after all, Silver City's Big Ditch used to be Main Street. And monsoon season likely begins next month.

"People visit on a sunny day. The contractor starts work on a sunny day," Melaney says. "They want to build where the pretty cottonwoods grow. Well, that's where it gets wet."

For more information on flood zones within the town of Silver City, contact Bud Melaney at 538-6368; he also has FEMA maps for all of Grant County. You can find and customize FEMA flood maps online at www.msc.fema.gov. See also www.fema.gov/business/nfi and www.FloodSmart.gov; at the latter site, you can enter your address and obtain a flood-risk profile.

David A. Fryxell is editor of Desert Exposure.

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