Glaringly Obvious Financially Motivated Corruption of FEMA’s Flood Zone Maps.
The huge cost increases in Federal Flood Insurance premiums have been in the news quite a lot lately, but the 1% (as usual) will apparently not be paying their fair share of the bill.
As homeowners around the nation protest skyrocketing premiums for federal flood insurance, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has quietly moved the lines on its flood maps to benefit hundreds of oceanfront condo buildings and million-dollar homes, according to an analysis of federal records by NBC News…
…In more than 500 instances from the Gulf of Alaska to Bar Harbor, Maine, FEMA has remapped waterfront properties from the highest-risk flood zone, saving the owners as much as 97 percent on the premiums they pay into the financially strained National Flood Insurance Program.
What is happening is that large luxury condominiums (and some multimillion dollar homes) are applying for and getting exemptions that do not show them in the highest risk flood area categories. Even though some of the same buildings have suffered damage and filed enormous policy claims from previous storms. In many cases these exemptions have been fought by local officials and flood risk managers only to be overruled by the higher ups in Washington.
But nearly all of the condominium towers are no longer in that high-risk zone, including a 17-story condominium built where the old Holiday Inn was wiped away by Ivan’s winds and waves, and another where the McDonald’s was a total loss…
…The Island Tower’s condo association was paying $143,190 a year into the National Flood Insurance Program. Now that it’s been reclassified into a lower-risk flood zone, its premium is $8,457 a year, a saving of 94 percent, according to records examined by NBC News.
Just down the beach is the Royal Palms. It collected $58,230 for damages during Katrina, and $889,730 from Ivan. The Royal Palms was paying $218,484 a year, but after being changed to a lower-risk flood zone, now pays only $6,845, saving 97 percent.
The real travesty is that due to the reclassification of these mega-million dollar properties some of them now pay less per year in flood insurance than neighboring private homes with less than one-hundredth of their assessed value.
Guess what American taxpayers (and flood insurance policy holders)? Your hard earned money is being used to “subsidize” the lifestyles of the rich once again. Still waiting to see how the bureaucrats justify this one. “These rich job creators need to feel safe and secure about their vacation homes and condominiums so that they can get on with the business of creating jobs in serenity?”
This is absolutely ridiculous, if the Congressional Republicans want to hold “hearings” about something this would be at the very top of my list to be investigated. But of course they won’t, they probably hold an interest in or own half of the properties that have been “reclassified” while some Democrats probably own the other half…crooked bastards. :(
