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Overcast Schumer challenges flood maps
Says faulty information created problems for Valley Stream homeowners
U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer is calling on the inspectors general of the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security to investigate the process used to create the new flood maps that added thousands of Valley Stream residents to a high-risk flood zone in 2009.
Appearing at the American Legion Hall in Valley Stream Monday morning, Schumer criticized the Federal Emergency Management Agency for its development of the maps. “The data that FEMA used to draft these new maps is highly suspect,” he said. “The evidence continues to mount.”
The newest information, according to Schumer, is that FEMA used information gathered in Suffolk County to draft Nassau County’s flood maps. Nassau’s maps, he said, are based on data collected from a study of the area from Fire Island to Montauk done by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. FEMA rejected spending more than $1 million for a Nassau-specific survey, Schumer said.
“FEMA’s decision to cut costs has been an expensive proposition for Nassau County homeowners,” he said, adding that the county’s geography — its unique coastal and tidal characteristics — should have been the subject of a separate study.
Schumer said that because of this cost-cutting measure, homeowners in communities with no history of flooding are getting hit with flood insurance premiums of up to $3,000 per year. He added that the independent inspectors general should launch an investigation.
But according to a Dec. 9, 2008, letter from FEMA to East Rockaway village officials, who raised the same concerns, the Fire Island-to-Montauk Point study included the entire south shore of Long Island, as far west as Coney Island. The letter also stated that a panel of technical experts were “impressed by the results” of the study, calling it comprehensive and an “exceptional body of work.”
Schumer also criticized FEMA for holding back information from municipalities at a time when the maps could have been challenged. He said that FEMA would not release the Fire Island-to-Montauk Point study to local governments during the flood map appeal period because it was considered preliminary information. Local officials “didn’t get the full story,” he said.
