Recovery Assistance & Mitigation Planning

Recovery Planner Jennifer Gerbasi

 

Time to Get Prepared for Flooding and Funding

Thursday May 28, 2020 12:58 pm

Time to Get Prepared for Flooding and Funding

We are all distracted these days with the precautions that we are taking regarding the pandemic.  A health crisis like this is an unusual event for Terrebonne Parish, but we are all pulling together to move forward safely.  The threats that we are more accustomed to may also challenge us as storm season approaches formally starting on June 1st.  While flood insurance renewals have been extended for some period of time, those that are not insured will be unprotected.   Flood insurance may prepare your family not only for flooding, but funding applications that open at the end of August.   

FEMA will be offering an application for elevation or reconstruction of repetitive loss structures, but only if they are insured on the day that the application opens.  Severe Repetitive Loss properties are eligible to compete nationally for 100% grant for elevation or demolition/reconstruction of the structure.  Other repetitively flooded structures may be eligible for 90% of the total project cost.

BUT – THE STRUCTURE NEEDS TO BE INSURED PRIOR TO THE GRANT PERIOD OPENING!

Flood insurance also has a 30-day waiting period before it is finalized, so no one interested in the grants should wait to pay the premium.

The funding for these grants come from the National Flood Insurance Program premiums, so the structure needs to be covered by an NFIP flood insurance policy when the application period opens at the end of August. 

Anyone who has an SRL or RL property is advised to get flood insurance AND contact the Recovery Assistance and Mitigation Planning Office at 985-873-6565 to get a letter of interest and start gathering information for an application.  All of these programs take time, and it could be years before complete, but one has to START!

The SRL group consists of any NFIP-insured residential property that has met at least 1 of the following paid flood loss criteria since 1978, regardless of ownership:

••4 or more separate claim payments of more than $5,000 each (including building and contents payments), 2 within a ten-year period; or

•• 2 or more separate claim payments (building payments only) where the total of the payments exceeds the current value of the property, 2 within a ten-year period.

If the grant is awarded, the program will pay 100% of the elevation total project cost up to $333K.

Repetitive Loss (RL) property for the purposes of the grant program is a property that has incurred flood-related damage on two occasions, in which the cost of the repair, on the average, equaled or exceeded 25% of the market value of the structure at the time of each such flood event – over 50% damaged in 2 events.

If the grant is awarded, the program will pay 90% of the elevation total project cost for a repetitive loss property up to $333K.

The time to prepare is now.  Spread the work to get flood insurance, and get above the flood!

873-6565

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