A flood of data

As the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) rolls out updated flood insurance maps for Carbon County, the Saratoga Town Council is asking residents to closely examine the changes that have been made and how it will affect them.

During the September 15 meeting of the governing body, Councilmember Jon Nelson gave a brief synopsis of the Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM) Open House that had been held by FEMA concurrently on Zoom and at the Platte Valley Community Center the night before.

“I think this is going to be a really important topic for discussion among Saratoga residents and this council and staff and town hall, as it relates to public works, planning and zoning, planning commission for the next 12 to 18 months,” said Nelson. “FEMA’s revising the flood insurance rate maps for all of Carbon County and they’ve come out with a much more detailed map of Saratoga that establishes base flood elevations and greatly expands the flood boundaries.”

The map that has been used by FEMA for the Town of Saratoga is over 30 years old, having last been revised in 1986. According to Nelson, there were some areas removed from the older maps, which included the area around the current location of the Saratoga Middle High School. There were, however, more additions to the map than removals.

Much of the lower Saratoga area is divided into Zone A and Zone X. Property owners in Zone A will be required to purchase flood insurance, though those who own their property outright may not be required to do so. For property owners in Zone X, meanwhile, it may be optional to purchase flood insurance unless they are required to do so by their lenders.

With the proposed maps having just been released, a 90-day comment and appeal period will likely take place in the late winter of this year or the early spring of next year. According to Nelson, the appeal process would likely be very involved.

“If either we as a community or any individual property owners are concerned about what they see on the map and want to talk about the prospect of an appeal happening, that needs to start now. Because, by the time that 90 day period comes up, you’ve got to be on the ball,” Nelson said. “We have to be on the ball if it means us, as a community, with that appeal process already started.”

As Nelson continued to stress how important it was for town residents to look at the updated maps and prepare for a potential appeal process, Councilmember D’Ron Campbell brought up her experience from the 2011 flood with various areas of town, including her own residence.

“I know, 2011, there’s probably a whole aerial photo of the town where you can see where they were close to being flooded. I would suggest maybe going and looking at those pictures,” said Campbell.

“That was discussed during the meeting, briefly, and they stated specifically that they are not relying on any historic events as input into how the maps are created,” replied Nelson. “The statement was made that they do not look at any river gauging data from any historic events. Even though they have data that exists from the 2011 flood, that doesn’t go in the model. They’re not looking at what happened in 2011 versus 2010.”

Nelson added that, if the Town of Saratoga decided to appeal the updated FIRM as presented by FEMA, it would likely require the governing body to engage with a consultant who specialized in hydrology and making appeals to flood maps.

“Fortunately, all of the broad data that FEMA used to create this map is available to anybody who wants it,” said Nelson. “It’s public information. So there’s not a whole lot of duplication of data acquisition, I don’t think, but it’s still a really intensive process.”

With the proposed maps out for review, the Saratoga Town Council appeared to agree to examine those maps moving forward with Mayor Pro-Tem Bob Keel stating that it would be important for people to understand why FEMA was not using historical data in crafting their flood maps.

“I know the technical answer on why it doesn’t count but maybe the best thing to do would be to get that response in writing or even ask somebody to come and speak,” Nelson replied.

The next meeting of the Saratoga Town Council will be at 7 p.m. on October 6 at Saratoga Town Hall.