Village official works to get Chauncey back its flood insurance

Though a federal agency has announced that the village of Chauncey is about to lose its federal flood insurance because of two decades of chronic non-compliance with its own flood-plain regulations, a newly appointed village official said last week that he hopes to finally begin addressing the problem.

"œWe're just getting started with it," said Jeff Trout, the new village administrator whose responsibilities include flood-plain rules.

In August 2007, the Federal Emergency Management Program notified Chauncey that it had 60 days to correct long-standing flood-plain violations in village buildings.

If it didn't do so, the agency warned, the village risked being put on probation from, or even expelled from, the National Flood Insurance Program. This would mean that village residents would have to seek flood insurance from private firms, which would charge much higher premiums than the NFIP.

At the time, a state official who has responsibility for flood-plain issues told The Athens NEWS that he had been nagging village officials for more than 20 years to address the numerous flood-plain violations in the flood-prone village.

Christopher Thoms, a supervisor in the flood-plain management program of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources' Division of Water, said at that time that many of the problems Chauncey was facing would be fairly simple to fix "“ for example, by opening portals in the lower story of a building to allow flood waters to flow through it. Others appeared to be simply documentation issues.

"They have violations that are very, very easily fixed," Thoms told The NEWS.

However, he added, he had talking to village officials since Chauncey passed its flood-plain regs in 1986, urging them to fix the problems, to no avail, and so he finally decided to call in FEMA.

FEMA put Chauncey on probation from the NFIP in June 2008. On Oct. 26 of this year, FEMA's regional office in Chicago notified the village that effective this coming Friday, it will be dropped from the program.

Trout said that people who currently have NFIP flood insurance will not lose it immediately, because policies are typically written for a year, but that they will not be able to renew them once they run out.

"People's insurance will not stop on Nov. 6," he said. "It will not happen until next July."

FEMA contacts listed on a news release about the suspension were out of the office Friday, but in 2007, the agency reported that 71 NFIP policies were in effect in Chauncey, offering more than $3.8 million worth of coverage.

Trout, who took over as village administrator after the previous office-holder resigned earlier this year, said he has been in contact with FEMA and ODNR, and is just beginning his effort to get the village into compliance.

"Each individual site has to be inspected," he pointed out. He said he believes some buildings can be fixed with minor structural repairs, but not all.

"Some of them may even have to be raised, whole buildings," he said.

He noted that when the village enacted its flood-plain ordinance in 1986, any building constructed prior to that time was "grandfathered" and did not have to come into compliance. However, he said, if a property owner improved a site, adding more than 50 percent to its assessed value, this would end the grandfathering.

Trout said that while some of his job will involve pressuring property owners to make physical improvements, much of it will be documentation that's been neglected for years.

"Absolutely, yes," he said. "It's going to be a lot of paperwork... It's not going to happen overnight."

Given the size of the task, he admitted, village property owners in the flood plain may well lose their federal insurance before it's finished.

Unfortunately, he added, the NFIP has an all-or-nothing policy "“ everyone in the village has to be in compliance, or nobody can take part in the program.

"That's the whole problem with this," Trout said. "Everybody has to comply, or nobody gets (federal) insurance."

In its release, FEMA said it "remains committed to assisting the village of Chauncey in developing a strong flood-plain management program," with the goal being to "help people protect the investment in their house and belongings."

Once Chauncey is suspended from the NFIP Friday, the agency added, in addition to losing insurance it "will not qualify for flood-related disaster assistance for acquisition or construction purposes in a Special Flood Hazard Area."