The newest flood plain map put out by theFederal Emergency Management Agency could impact thousands of lives. Some 12-hundred properties along Onondaga Creek have been included in a flood plain. Such a designation requires homeowners in much of Syracuse's southside and businesses in Armory Square to buy expensive flood insurance.
FEMA put out a similar map two years ago. Syracuse was able to convince the agency to drop 109 properties from the flood plain. Now the city is prepared to renew the fight. City Engineer Glen Mihal will try to find areas along the creek where FEMA misjudged the contours of the land and the capacity of Onondaga Creek. Just a couple of inches in elevation could eliminate hundreds of homes by shrinking the flood plain. "We're going to shrink it 6 inches at a time and hopefully the more people we can get out of the flood zone, the better it is." MiHall said.
Engineers are looking for every little thing to try to prove the FEMA maps wrong. For instance, they're re-measuring four bridges near Armory Square. The city will try to show that if one or more bridges were taken out, flooding upstream would be alleviated.
Upstream are more than a thousand homes on Syracuse's southside. Property owners may have to shell out up to $2 thousand a year in flood insurance premiums. Reverend Nebraski Carter says most people could not afford such an expense and may be forced to move. Carter says he's never seen widespread flooding from Onondaga Creek. "They need to research the history of this area, we never had a flood." Carter said.
FEMA's Paul Weberg says the maps are drawn from topography and computer models based on the probability of a flood every 100 years. "it's a flood that could occur 1 percent in any given year. A lot of people feel a hundred year flood , it has to happen in a hundred years ...not necessarily. It may not happen for a few hundred years."
Syracuse has 30 days to file an appeal to the new flood plain maps which will be heard by a panel of scientists.
