Updated flood-zone maps proposed for the Outer Banks unexpectedly roll back high-water areas like an ebbing tide, freeing thousands of homes from requiring flood insurance and potentially saving owners thousands of dollars.
Officials credited more-accurate aerial mapping technology.
If the new maps are approved, more than 22,000 Dare County homes would sit outside areas now marked as prone to heavy flooding where more-expensive insurance is required. More than 6,000 homes would be removed from flood zones in Currituck County.
The proposed maps are a surprise reversal of recent policies that accounted for sea-level rise and expected increases in coastal flooding.
"It's amazing," said Willo Kelly, president of NC-20, a coalition of North Carolina coastal counties. "This is really good news to us."
The coalition, individual property owners and elected officials in eastern North Carolina have protested for years the expansion of flood zones and insurance costs. Expectations were that the new maps would drastically increase storm-surge boundaries.
"I think we're all cautiously optimistic," said Warren Judge, chairman of the Dare County Board of Commissioners.
The new rate maps are scheduled to be made public near the end of the year, and still await Federal Emergency Management Agency approval.
"We hope it holds up," Judge said.
Aircraft using light detection and ranging, or LIDAR, technology allow more-detailed surveys of the land and improved flood prediction, said Elizabeth Teague, Nags Head's planning director.
"You're getting very accurate topography," she said.
Another reason for the changes might be man-made improvements such as beach nourishment and filling, she said.
A report given at a meeting of the Coastal Resources Commission in Nags Head showed examples of new maps and a chart listing the number of homes that might no longer be in flood zones. The report has not been widely distributed but is available on the N.C. Coastal Resources Commission website.
As an example, the report compares a current flood-zone map in Nags Head near Jennette's Pier, where all buildings are in the 100-year flood plain, thereby requiring insurance. The proposed update shows the same area with the flood zone receding to approximately the dune line, taking hundreds of buildings out of the zone.
The National Flood Insurance Program requires insurance for homes with mortgages lying in high-risk flood zones. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 plunged the federal insurance program into heavy debt.
New laws such as the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012 raised coastal insurance rates and removed grandfather clauses that saved some from paying. Congress passed the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act in March that reinstated some grandfather clauses and capped rate increases.
Kelly of NC-20 said a $150,000 home in an Avon flood zone paid about $1,200 a year for insurance before Biggert-Waters, and about $15,000 a year afterward. Such houses could be exempt from insurance under the new maps, she said.
"This is going to help a lot of people make ends meet," she said.
Fears of a new development boom on the fragile beach environment in Dare are unfounded, Kelly said. About 82 percent of Dare cannot be developed because it is wetlands or public parks, and what's left is nearly built out, she said.
The proposed maps show an increase in flood-surge predictions in areas along the southeastern coast. Officials with the North Carolina Floodplain Mapping Program did not respond to phone messages.
Jeff Hampton, 252-338-0159, jeff.hampton@pilotonline.com