After the flood risk recedes from Cairo, IL and the citizens in Little Village, NJ mop up their waterlogged homes, those flooding victims may avoid repeating the nightmare with drastic action – selling their homes to the government.
The Hazard Mitigation Assistance programs provide options for citizens interested in a buyout, with the goal to reduce the possibility of future loss of life and property. When citizens with flood insurance voluntarily choose to sell their homes for a fair pre-flood price, the government goes forward and demolishes the houses – leaving flood plains without potential victims.
“It’s probably the most reliable mitigation program you can get,” said Iowa City flood specialist David Purdy, because if you take the house out of the flood plain there is no possibility of another flood damaging the structure or placing homeowners and emergency rescue teams in danger.
Iowa City suffered a serious flood in 2008. Since then, Purdy has specialized in working with flood- affected families, helping them decide whether the time was right to make a move.
For “a lot of folks after the flood of 2008, the response was number one, oh my gosh how am I going to get out of here, and number two, how is the city going to protect me if I can’t get out of here?” Purdy said.
In Iowa City, 37 out of the 57 eligible properties are going to be purchased and razed. Originally, the interest was higher but FEMA told Purdy that dropoffs are pretty normal as time lapses between a buyout and the original flood.
Immediately after a disaster, families may receive individual assistance grants, Purdy explained, which can be used for structural repairs to a damaged home, emergency housing needs or repair money to remove the mold. Later, when they choose to be a part of the buyout program, this money is deducted from the closing cost of their homes –if they don’t have the receipts.
“Probably the biggest problem we had was folks going back a year, year and a half to try and find these receipts so that it wouldn’t get deducted from the closing price,” Purdy said. “The problem is that often the FEMA officials don’t stress enough to save the receipts.”
According to a FEMA fact sheet, the program ensures that “the opportunity to take critical mitigation measures to reduce the risk of loss of life and property from future disasters is not lost during the reconstruction process following a disaster.”
The President declared parts of Iowa a disaster area after the 2008 floods, making Iowa City eligible for the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, but other programs under the Hazard Mitigation Assistance umbrella participate in buyouts, too. According to the eligibility fact sheet, every flood program under the HMA considers property acquisition and structure demolition or relocation a viable project – if it passes a cost/ benefit analysis.
“It’s basically they look at if they put in a dollar, somewhere down the road is it going to protect a dollar or is it going to protect less than a dollar,” Purdy said.
Part of the reason these projects are so viable is that a study by the Multihazard Mitigation Council showed that the benefits for mitigation projects like buyouts are huge. For every one dollar spent on mitigation projects, the study found that the country reaped four dollars in future benefits.
To reap these benefits, state agencies like Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources often take the national program even further. Pat Lynch, Flood Hazard Mitigation Grant Program Coordinator in Minnesota, said that since 1988 state funds have helped to purchase over 2,500 properties and spent $365 million on mitigation including preventative buyouts throughout the state.
“Where we have the opportunity to leverage federal money, we do that. We make a concerted effort to leverage federal dollars as much as possible,” said Lynch. “It’s more so after a disaster because that’s when you are going to have more structures eligible for federal funding.”
Lynch stressed that programs like these are not just about response, but about preventing future disasters from occurring by using foresight. Communities come to Lynch, and his department decides whether a buyout is worth it.
“The communities that have benefited from the program, they will be the first to tell you how much money their projects have already saved in damages prevented and emergency measures that didn’t have to be taken. We are quite confident,” Lynch said.
“At the end of the day it’s all taxpayer money.”
