NEWS
February 26, 2006 | By Alan J. Heavens INQUIRER REAL ESTATE WRITER
A bill, crafted in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, to revise the federal flood-insurance program will be considered by the U.S. House of Representatives this spring. The legislation is designed primarily to restore the flood-insurance program to financial solvency by increasing the amount that can be borrowed to cover disaster damages to $22 billion, from $3.5 billion. The measure, introduced in November by Rep. Michael Oxley (R., Ohio) and Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.), had been the subject of committee hearings in the House and Senate.
NEWS
November 21, 1995 | By Wes Conard, INQUIRER CORRESPONDENT
Borough homeowners will pay $50 extra this year for their federal flood insurance because the borough has not resolved a two-year dispute over a Darby Creek floodway-encroachment violation. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which provides flood insurance for homeowners, has put the borough on a yearlong probation, the first step toward suspending flood insurance, according to Dave Thomas, who supervises FEMA's community mitigation programs. The probation was ordered after a meeting Nov. 8 between property owner Dave Messina and officials from the borough, FEMA and the state Department of Environmental Protection.
NEWS
July 14, 2011 | By James Macpherson, Associated Press
MINOT, N.D. - The U.S. government will help the flooded city of Minot "for the duration," the cabinet secretary responsible for federal disaster assistance said Wednesday, but she cautioned that North Dakota residents should better prepare for future disasters. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the federal government "does not have deep pockets, nor is it a panacea," after taking a helicopter tour over the city where 4,100 homes have been damaged by Souris River floodwaters and more than 11,000 people have had to temporarily leave.
NEWS
November 20, 2011 | By Al Heavens, Inquirer Columnist
Steve Bosch of Elkins Park wanted to make sure that he wasn't just engaging in a gripe session when he contacted me. What he hoped to do was impart a warning to readers who might be in the market for flood insurance. Although it appears to be a no-brainer for, say, people who live in low-lying areas near the Schuylkill or the Delaware, Bosch cautioned that flood insurance was not something to be taken lightly. He has lived in his house since 1998 and survived 12 floods, he said, starting with Hurricane Floyd in 1999 and ending with Hurricane Irene.
NEWS
May 25, 1997 | By James M. O'Neill, INQUIRER TRENTON BUREAU
When Muriel Sandner and her husband purchased their home on Beach Avenue here in 1959, they had no flood insurance. When the federal government started a flood insurance program in 1968, the Sandners didn't bother to sign up. "My husband thought it was a waste," Sandner recalls. "Even in the storm of 1962, we got no water in our house. He always said that if we lost the house, it's the property that really has the value. " In the mid-'80s, she insured the contents of her home - but not the house itself.
NEWS
August 1, 1993 | By Dan Meyers, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Inquirer staff writer Jeffrey Fleishman contributed to this article
Few places flood the way St. Charles County floods. These lowlands between the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers often are submerged - 43 percent of the county and the homes of 3,500 people are underwater right now. Even when nature is less dramatic than it has been this summer - such as when it merely rains hard - many places are awash. And time and again, when the waters rise, the people of St. Charles County turn to the American taxpayer for help. Then many of them move right back into places such as the Princess Jodi Village trailer park along the Missouri or "river rat" shacks along the Mississippi.
NEWS
July 12, 1994 | By Jeffrey Fleishman, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Ben P. Lee stood in the sandy soil skirting his new 5,000-square-foot brick Colonial home yesterday and squinted out toward the dirty floodwaters that were 150 yards away and creeping closer every hour. A certified public accountant, Lee knew the math was simple. If the roiling water invades his $350,000 home before midnight tonight, he must cover the entire loss. But if the onslaught strikes one minute later, Lee, by a stroke of luck any Georgia preacher would consider divine, will be saved.
NEWS
June 28, 1992 | By Monica Yant, INQUIRER WASHINGTON BUREAU
In 1980, Godfrey Cheshire spent $15,000 to move his Nags Head, N.C., cottage back from the relentless ocean. "We didn't want to lose the house," he explained. Now, Cheshire, 73, is worried that Congress, rather than the ocean, may snatch his cottage away. Like thousands of others with homes and businesses perched perilously on the nation's coasts, Cheshire depends on federal flood insurance to make his home secure. Without it, he would be forced to pay thousands of dollars each year to protect his property or face the risk of an uninsured catastrophic loss.
NEWS
December 24, 1993 | By Cynthia J. McGroarty, INQUIRER CORRESPONDENT
A controversy over dumping has emerged following the federal government's suspension of the borough's flood insurance. On one side are borough officials, who are anxious to get back in the government insurance program because Colwyn is surrounded on three sides by Darby Creek. Because of the suspension, property owners cannot obtain or renew flood insurance. To be reinstated the borough must certify that a property at Seventh Street and Keystone Avenue along the Darby Creek has never been a dumping ground.
NEWS
December 2, 1991 | By Gregory Spears, Inquirer Washington Bureau
Congress is quietly considering changes to the national flood insurance program that could put the brakes on coastal development and pay some property owners to move away from eroding shorelines. A wide-ranging reform bill would forbid construction on land that could be washed away within 30 years at current erosion rates, and limit the size of new buildings that would be in danger within 60 years. But the bill's most controversial feature would pressure some homeowners nearest the water to move or demolish structures within a "zone of imminent collapse" - buildings that could be expected to be undermined by erosion within 10 years.