FLOOD ZONES - ARE YOU AFRAID?
A little fun educational story for you as we head into the rainy season and gear up for hurricane season!!
Are flood zones scary to you? That’s the first thing that people always ask me when they are moving to the coast. They hear the words “ocean, hurricanes, rivers, waterway, and wetlands”, and they get super nervous. I’ll admit, it was scary for me too when I moved from Raleigh to the coast.
Now that I understand the language, and now that I have all the resources at my fingertips, the topic of flooding is much less scary to me.
First, it was really important for me to understand the FEMA flood zones and what they mean for likelihood of having an issue. An insurance agent was very helpful in explaining this to me, but also understanding how water actually moves after a storm, and learning how to look for risky areas when we’re actually touring homes gave me some confidence when working with home and land buyers.
I’ll paint a picture for you:
My husband and I built our home in a pretty neighborhood off the intracoastal waterway just outside of Topsail Island. We learned that although our home was currently in the favorable X flood zone and did NOT require flood insurance from our lender, that we would soon be incorporated into the AE flood zone, a substantial step “up” in the likelihood of flooding. My husband has a career history in land development and neighborhood planning, and he quickly explained to me that we were in a really great spot for water flow. Our house was probably 500 feet from the intracoastal waterway (connected to the ocean!), and it really looked like we were so close to a body of water that we would for sure flood in an emergency…. Not the case! This meant we had great DRAINAGE!
We looked at the topography of the land, at the drainage systems that the neighborhood has put in place, and we looked at the rates for flood insurance, and we weighed our options. We EDUCATED ourselves on our particular situation.
We purchased the flood insurance, and we made sure our home was well equipped to handle a little bit of water.
Most importantly, we recognized that for water to get INTO our home, our entire neighborhood would seemingly have to be under water. Our positioning within the flood zone, the construction of our home, and the neighborhood planning all came together to make us feel so comfortable with our particular circumstance.
During hurricane Florence, our property did not hold water.
Now, we certainly know that our local area wasn’t entirely so lucky. Those areas near rivers were hit the hardest as all the water coming from inland was collecting there, making them swell tremendously, and ultimately the water had no where to go but into backyards and highways. We can gather as much information from our past experiences, mapping technology, and construction expertise to protect our homeowners as best as possible.
Just do the homework; every situation is different. I will have tons of resources to help you with this.
I’m here to help,
Brittany
