GULFPORT, Ill. — Juli Parks didn’t worry when water began creeping up the levee that shields this town of about 750 from the Mississippi River — not even when volunteers began piling on sandbags.
After all, local officials had assured townspeople in 1999 that the levee was sturdy enough to withstand a historic flood, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency had agreed. In fact, some homeowners dropped their flood insurance and others applied for permits to build new houses and businesses.
Then Tuesday, the worst happened: The levee burst and Gulfport was submerged in 10 feet of water. Only 28 property owners were insured against the damage.
“They all told us, ‘The levees are good. You can go ahead and build,’ ” said Parks, who did not buy flood coverage because her bank no longer required it. “We had so much confidence in those levees.”
Across the country, thousands of residents who relied on risk maps from FEMA might unknowingly face similar dangers.
“People put all their hopes in those levees, and when they do fail, the damage is catastrophic,” said Paul Osman, the National Flood Insurance Program coordinator for Illinois. “New Orleans is the epitome.”
Mike Buckley, a FEMA deputy assistant administrator, said agency officials encourage everyone to buy federal flood insurance and have never claimed that levees eliminate the risk of flooding.
But now — amid the disastrous flooding across Iowa, Illinois and Missouri — some policymakers are demanding the government come up with more accurate, up-to-date flood-risk assessments, inform the public better of the dangers, and require nearly all homeowners to buy coverage if they live near dams or levees.
FEMA relies on outside engineers whose job is to certify whether a levee can withstand a 100-year flood — that is, a flood so big that it has only a 1 percent chance of happening in any given year.
If FEMA agrees with the certification, then the homes and businesses protected by the levee are not considered to be in a floodplain. That means homeowners living there do not have to buy federal flood insurance. However, some FEMA floodplain maps are 20 years old and seriously outdated, based on old evaluations of levees and river conditions.
FEMA, which administers the National Flood Insurance Program, has spent almost $1 billion since 2003 to modernize its maps.
