BY MARK J. CRAWFORD
Telegraph Editor
STARKE — Troy Roberts with the Suwannee River Water Management District told county commissioners Feb. 7 that FEMA has worked with the district to revise flood risk maps that will be open for public input next week.
The maps are also used to educate current and future property owners with information on their flood risk.
Some areas within the Santa Fe River Basin have been revised in recent years, while others have gone untouched for more than a decade. There are several reasons for revisiting the maps on a regular basis, he said.
“Sometimes technology is upgraded. It lets us have a better look at the land and what that looks like and how potential floods impact residents and people who own certain lands. Other times it’s development. Obviously, more development can create issues for flooding as well,” he said.
These reviews result in changes to flood zones that may make some happy and others not so much, Roberts said.
“Some people here are going to be very happy, because they’ll find that they have been in a flood zone for the past 10, 15, 20 years. These new maps are going to come out, and they will no longer be in a flood zone. Conversely, there are people who are currently not in flood zones that due to upgrades and, again, these new maps will find they are in flood zones,” he said.
The purpose of the upcoming meetings is to accept public feedback.
“There are some people that can come to us and say, ‘Hey, I don’t think I’m in a flood zone. I’ve been here for 60 years, and I’ve never seen any flooding.’ That gives us a reason to go back and look at it and potentially make a change to their location,” Roberts said.
Reviewing your property
You can review the status of your property and any proposed changes by following these steps.
Visit www.SRWMDFlood Report.com/Virtual.
Scroll to the SRWMD Flood Report tab.
Select the Santa Fe Watershed (ARCGIS), and search for your property address.
Ensure the “Changes Since Last Effective” layer is turned on for your specific county to see projected changes. Areas in red are new additions into a flood zone; areas in green have been removed from a flood zone.
If you see there is a proposed change to your property, you are encouraged to attend any of the three upcoming meetings. (See below.)
More on the meetings
Local property owners are encouraged to take part in the development of preliminary flood risk maps for the Santa Fe Watershed at a series of meetings this month.
Representatives from the Suwannee River Water Management District and Federal Emergency Management Agency will be available to discuss the ongoing development of flood risk maps for the region. Residents who live in certain areas of Alachua, Baker, Bradford, Columbia, Gilchrist, Suwannee and Union counties could be impacted by updated flood maps.
Feedback received during the meeting will be taken into consideration for the development of the preliminary maps, which are expected to be available to review later this year.
Three public meetings have been scheduled for residents to provide feedback.
Feb. 21 – Bradford County Courthouse in Starke – 5 to 8 p.m.
Feb. 22 – James A. Lewis Commission Chambers in Alachua – 5 to 8 p.m.
Feb. 23 – Westside Community Center in Lake City – 5 to 8 p.m.
For those who cannot attend in-person, you can submit feedback up to 30 days following the meetings to [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected].
