Remapping of floodplains costly for some homeowners

A FEMA official said applying the Temple methodology to the whole country would cost about $38 billion, or about 25 times what has been spent.

One might wonder why FEMA takes on the task at all.

FEMA is well-known to the public as the national firehouse for disasters, but it is also one of the world's largest insurers - by default. Flooding is so ubiquitous and perennial that private companies have wanted no part of the market.

Since the market would not back flood losses, FEMA eventually became the insurer of last resort - with the U.S. Treasury (read: taxpayers) as the cash reserve.

In order to sell insurance, FEMA had to map the risk and undertook one of the most ambitious mapping programs in U.S. history. The first flood-insurance policy was sold in 1969.

To get into NFIP, communities had to take anti-flooding measures and limit development in high-risk areas. The thinking was that insurance coverage would reduce disaster-assistance costs, saving taxpayers money. Critics argue that NFIP has increased disaster costs by allowing risky building.

To entice owners of older building stock into the program, FEMA offered steep discounts for properties built before flood mapping.

That backfired in the horrifying 2005 hurricane season of Katrina, Rita, and Wilma.

A big part of the problem in Katrina was the inaccuracy of the old flood maps in the area where the hurricane made landfall, said Hunter, the former NFIP director.

Advances in technology finally allowed FEMA to digitize the maps and undertake the modernization. Hunter said FEMA might someday be able to predict how a given floodplain might change with development, which he likened to "filling a bathtub with houses."

Conrad said the real solution to the nation's flood-insurance problem is to stop building in floodplains. "Flooding forces are inexorable," he said. "That's a battle we will lose."

FEMA's Bollinger said he fully understood why people wanted to live in floodplains.

"As a nation, we love the water," he said. "I go to the Shore and think, 'If I could work here . . .' "

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