West Hartford Gets A Break On Flood Insurance

According to the November 30, 2007 edition of Council Briefs,

FEMA issues West Hartford a Class 8 status: The Federal Emergency Management has determined that West Hartford will increase to a Class 8 in the National Flood Insurance Program Community Rating System. The floodplain activities used by our community qualifies it for a 10% discount in the premium cost of flood insurance for policies issued or renewed in Special Flood Hazard Areas on or after October 1, 2007. This savings is a tangible result of the flood mitigation activities West Hartford has implemented to protect lives and reduce property damage.

That's good news for our town. It would be interesting to know exactly what those "flood mitigation activities" were. They don't seem to be posted anywhere on the town web pages. How were those activities paid for? By the West Hartford taxpayer, by the MDC, by the State? It would also be interesting to know how many man hours it took to file the information necessary to FEMA to obtain this rating. We all know how much paperwork these kinds of filings can be. Also what percentage of our citizens obtain this discount for their benefit?

Communities participating in the National Flood Insurance Program are rated as a Class 1 through 10. A Class 1 community receives a 45% reduction on flood insurance on properties within the floodplain and a Class 10 receives a 0% reduction. The Community Rating System was initiated by FEMA in 1990 as a way to reward communities for their increased efforts in reducing damage and loss attributed to flooding. Here is the CRS homepage.

In 1968 the U.S. Congress established the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) making flood insurance available to residents of communities that adopt and enforce floodplain management ordinances. The NFIP Program is a part of The Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The NFIP - CIS (Community Information System) is an official record of the National Flood Insurance information.

The CIS, as the database system is commonly called, provides information about floodplain management, mapping and insurance for the NFIP communities. The CIS includes demographic, engineering, insurance and community specific information for jurisdictions in the United States that are identified as floodprone.

Here is FEMA's list of CT communities participating in the National Flood Insurance program. You can look at West Hartford's Flood map information here at their CIS homepage.