National Flood Insurance Program

Barely noticed in the clamor over the financial industry bailout, a multibillion-dollar rescue operation is under way in Washington to keep one of the world's largest insurers afloat. The foundering giant is the federal government's own National Flood Insurance Program, which is $17.3 billion in debt to the U.S. Treasury. When the bills for Hurricanes Gustav, Hanna and Ike are added up, probably by year's end, the program will likely be in the red by more than $20 billion - with virtually no chance of paying it back.

This month, the federal government announced it would not give grants to repair homes badly damaged by Hurricane Sandy unless the owners agreed to ensure they complied with new advisory flood maps. In New Jersey, the policy will not change much because the state government already has said it would not approve rebuilding the most damaged homes unless they comply with the maps. Following is a look at what the flood maps mean to homeowners in coastal areas. Question. What are the maps?

WASHINGTON - Here is how area members of Congress voted on major issues last week: House 2014 Homeland Security budget. Voting 245-182, the House on Thursday approved a $45 billion fiscal 2014 appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security and its 230,000 employees in seven agencies. The bill (HR 2217) increases spending for border protection, customs, and immigration enforcement while sharply cutting the Transportation Security Administration and Coast Guard budgets.

Underwater doesn't even begin to get at the heart of Maurice Corkery's predicament. "This was my summer home," the Delaware County plant manager said of his little rancher on Third Street in Ocean City, N.J., flooded with its foundation cracked - totalled, really - by Sandy. "I was trying to think of a time line," he said. "It's been so long. I'm so screwed up. I haven't seen any money. Where is the money? All they do is talk about it. " His engineer has to talk to the insurance company engineer.

President Obama returned to Washington Sunday and signed the legislation authorizing $9.7 billion for flood insurance to aid victims of Hurricane Sandy. Congress passed the measure Friday while Obama was vacationing with his family in Hawaii. The $9.7 billion for flood insurance is only a piece of the $60 billion sought by states hit hard by the October storm. Northeastern lawmakers, still angry that the full package was sent back to the legislative starting line earlier last week, are anticipating a much tougher fight over the remaining funds.

Once a power source vital to the region's economic growth, and once even a haven for yachts, Darby Creek remains a thoroughfare with some of the region's lushest pastoral vistas. But it also is one of the country's most flood-prone streams, a significant drain on the National Flood Insurance Program, and a national lesson in what can go wrong along a developed waterway. Worse for the thousands who live along its 26-mile course, from the border of Chester and Delaware Counties to the Delaware River, the Darby appears to be just a major rainstorm away from spilling over its banks yet again.

The U.S. House of Representatives recently voted to extend the already insolvent National Flood Insurance Program - and expand the program to cover wind damage from hurricanes. The Senate may debate this measure soon. Pennsylvania and New Jersey residents should be outraged at this latest threat to pick the taxpayers' pocket. It's bad, unfair public policy. The federal government created the National Flood Insurance Program 40 years ago to fill a perceived gap in the private insurance market.

With New Jersey ranking among the top five states receiving federal flood-insurance payments, a national conservation group called yesterday for flood-prone communities to allow at-risk homes to be sold voluntarily to the government and then torn down. In a report compiling flood-insurance data from 1978 to 1995, the National Wildlife Federation targeted 31 New Jersey communities - including Atlantic City, North Wildwood and Ventnor - that have been repeatedly hit by flooding and could benefit from voluntary property buyouts.

Six months after suspending the borough's flood-insurance program for homeowners, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has reinstated the policy with one stipulation: The borough must undertake a costly project to rectify floodway problems on a property at Seventh Street and Keystone Avenue owned by asphalt contractor Peter Messina. The renewed insurance policy was to go into effect at midnight, FEMA officials said at a special Colwyn Borough Council meeting yesterday. FEMA representative David Thomas told the council that it had 30 days to submit a timetable for implementing a plan to correct the water flow at a stretch of Messina's property along Darby Creek from the Amtrak bridge almost to the Pine Street bridge.

If life in the flood plain is a gamble, John Laber, for one, has decided to call nature's bluff. When he refinanced last year, Laber, who lives on Chestnut Street in Darby Borough next to Darby Creek, dropped his flood coverage. His reason is simple: "I couldn't afford the insurance. " Laber may be out on a limb over an often raging creek, but he is hardly there alone. In fact, among residents of flood-hazard areas, he has joined the overwhelming majority. Although in many cases it is a federal requirement, nationwide up to 85 percent of the homes and commercial buildings in flood zones are uninsured against flood losses, according to federal and private insurance experts.

WASHINGTON - Here is how area members of Congress voted on major issues last week: House 2014 Homeland Security budget. Voting 245-182, the House on Thursday approved a $45 billion fiscal 2014 appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security and its 230,000 employees in seven agencies. The bill (HR 2217) increases spending for border protection, customs, and immigration enforcement while sharply cutting the Transportation Security Administration and Coast Guard budgets.

This month, the federal government announced it would not give grants to repair homes badly damaged by Hurricane Sandy unless the owners agreed to ensure they complied with new advisory flood maps. In New Jersey, the policy will not change much because the state government already has said it would not approve rebuilding the most damaged homes unless they comply with the maps. Following is a look at what the flood maps mean to homeowners in coastal areas. Question. What are the maps?

Underwater doesn't even begin to get at the heart of Maurice Corkery's predicament. "This was my summer home," the Delaware County plant manager said of his little rancher on Third Street in Ocean City, N.J., flooded with its foundation cracked - totalled, really - by Sandy. "I was trying to think of a time line," he said. "It's been so long. I'm so screwed up. I haven't seen any money. Where is the money? All they do is talk about it. " His engineer has to talk to the insurance company engineer.

At night, back in the apartment they have had to rent while they figure out what to do with their half-wrecked home in Manahawkin, Ed and Carol Krzanowski wonder whether this is the time to leave the Shore for good. The ranch house they moved into 35 years ago, where they had planned to spend the rest of their retirement, took in two feet of salt water from nearby Manahawkin Bay during Sandy. Like tens of thousands of homeowners up and down the Jersey Shore, the Krzanowskis are struggling to navigate a maze of insurance settlements, floodplain maps, and government disaster aid to figure out whether they can afford to rebuild.

President Obama returned to Washington Sunday and signed the legislation authorizing $9.7 billion for flood insurance to aid victims of Hurricane Sandy. Congress passed the measure Friday while Obama was vacationing with his family in Hawaii. The $9.7 billion for flood insurance is only a piece of the $60 billion sought by states hit hard by the October storm. Northeastern lawmakers, still angry that the full package was sent back to the legislative starting line earlier last week, are anticipating a much tougher fight over the remaining funds.

Underneath its summer rental homes and saltwater taffy stands, the Jersey Shore is, geologically speaking, a chain of barrier islands - strips of sand built up over centuries that protect the mainland from the full impact of Atlantic storms. As the islands were developed into resorts, particularly in the last 50 years, houses and roads were built atop the former dunes. Man-made seawalls were constructed to protect development. In the weeks since Sandy wreaked nearly $30 billion in damage in New Jersey, most of it on the coastline, debate has grown over whether rising sea levels and a projected worsening of storms in decades to come mean it is time to begin pulling development back from the ocean's edge.

Hurricane Sandy has left the region, but that is small comfort to homeowners now faced with repairing damage and paying for it. Estimates so far, including one from Eqecat Inc., an Oakland, Calif. provider of catastrophic-risk models, have placed economic losses at up to $20 billion and the top range of insurance claims at $10 billion. CoreLogic, the Irvine, Calif., real estate data provider, said Monday that 20,283 residential properties in the Atlantic City-Hammonton area, valued at $4.8 billion, faced damage from the storm surge.

By Michael P. Nairn Even as residents of Southwest Philadelphia's flood-prone Eastwick neighborhood face the consequences of another major storm, city officials are considering a zoning change that would lead to the construction of more than 700 apartments there. Bordering Darby Creek and Cobbs Creek, Eastwick is located on a floodplain, an inherently unstable and shifting landscape. Moreover, it's downstream of the Clearview and Folcroft Landfills, which are federally designated Superfund sites.

Once a power source vital to the region's economic growth, and once even a haven for yachts, Darby Creek remains a thoroughfare with some of the region's lushest pastoral vistas. But it also is one of the country's most flood-prone streams, a significant drain on the National Flood Insurance Program, and a national lesson in what can go wrong along a developed waterway. Worse for the thousands who live along its 26-mile course, from the border of Chester and Delaware Counties to the Delaware River, the Darby appears to be just a major rainstorm away from spilling over its banks yet again.

With the National Flood Insurance Program struggling to contain an $18 billion dam burst of debt, Robert J. Wiley is convinced that homeowners in the borough of Eddystone are being forced, unfairly, to stick their fingers in the hole in the dike. In August, Wiley was told that he had to buy federal flood insurance - a $600 annual premium - even though his Delaware County town had no history of flooding. Abutting the Delaware River and scored by the Ridley and Crum Creeks, Eddystone is a tiny piece of one of the most ambitious mapping projects ever undertaken in the United States.