By Zach Despart
June 6, 2018 Updated: June 6, 2018 7:34pm
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Houston Chronicle
Homeowners who flooded during Hurrricane Harvey but had flood insurance received far more money to rebuild than neighbors who relied solely on FEMA assistance. The Canyon Gate neighborhood of Cinco Ranch (on right) was among the inundated neighborhoods.
Harris County residents with flood insurance whose homes flooded during Hurricane Harvey received, on average, more than $100,000 more to rebuild than neighbors who had to rely solely on FEMA benefits, the Harris County Flood Control District’s meteorologist said Wednesday.
At a flooding conference held by the Houston Geological Society at the University of Houston, meteorologist Jeff Lindner said the average flood insurance payout to homeowners who flooded was $120,000. Homeowners who took on water, lacked flood insurance and applied for recovery assistance through FEMA received just $4,000 to $7,000, on average.
The disparity is more significant since most of the homes Harvey swamped were outside the 100-year flood plain, where residents are required to enroll in the National Flood Insurance Program. Of the 154,170 homes in Harris County that flooded — about 11 percent of the entire housing stock — 105,000 were outside the flood plain, Lindner said. Just 36 percent of homeowners who flooded had flood insurance, which is excluded from most insurance policies.
Lindner said Harvey showed the need for residents to obtain flood insurance even if they live outside the 100-year flood plain as currently marked. Though Harvey dumped far more rain — 1 trillion gallons — on Harris County than any other storm, it only set records in 13 of the county’s 22 watersheds. White Oak Bayou, for example, reached a higher level during Tropical Storm Allison in 2001.
Bob Hunter, a former director of the National Flood Insurance Program, said outdated flood plain maps across the country have deceived homeowners into believing they do not need flood insurance. New construction displaces water and forces more runoff into bayous and detention basins, he said.
“The older the maps are, the more inadequate they are in terms of predicting risk,” Hunter said. “If you put cement down for parking lots, the water goes up.”
Part of a $2.5 billion flood infrastructure bond proposed by Harris County would fund engineering studies to better understand how different watersheds flood, Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said last week. That would help homeowners make an informed decision about whether they should purchase flood insurance.
The Harris County Commissioners Court has beefed up its regulation of construction outside the 100-year flood plain by adopting new post-Harvey rules, including requiring all new structures to be built high enough to stay dry in a 500-year storm.
The bond, which the court plans to put before voters on the one-year anniversary of Harvey on Aug. 25, would fund many flood infrastructure improvements, including storm water detention basins, channel modifications and buyouts for more than 1,000 homes in the flood plain.
On Wednesday, Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush announced $35.4 million in federal funds to Harris County for additional buyouts of flood-prone homes. That sum could pay for 160 homes and help residents move out of the flood plain, Bush said in a statement.
The grant comes a week after Harris County received an initial $26.5 million from the federal government. Coupled with $8.6 million in locally matched funds, commissioners plan to use it to buy out around 169 flood-prone homes.
The total funded buyouts to date, around 330, is well below the 1,000 the county had asked the federal government to pay for after Harvey, but officials expect FEMA to dole out additional grants in the future.
Harris County has purchased and razed about 3,000 flood-prone homes since the 1980s. The flood control district makes homes two feet or deeper in the floodplain a priority for purchase. About 3,300 homes meet this criterion.
zach.despart@chron.com