Dan Burton: “Congressman Stark and I both realized a problem that exists in the redrawing of the floodplain maps across this country.…”

“Congressman Stark and I both realized a problem that exists in the redrawing of the floodplain maps across this country. FEMA is in the process of reshooting the maps in several parts of the country, and the only way people who are in the affected areas know about it is, in the classified section of the newspaper, there is some very fine print that says that there is going to be a meeting discussing the elevations of the new floodplains. We had about 3 or 400 people in my district that didn't know anything about this until after the fact. Now, the problem is, once FEMA has redrawn these maps and they have been approved, the only way a person in a projected floodplain knows about it is if the insurance company contacts him and says you have 45 days to buy insurance or else we will add it to your mortgage payment. We had about 300 people in moderate income areas that were going to be hit with an extra thousand or $2,000 a year for flood insurance when there hadn't been a flood there for 100 or 150 years. In fact, nobody ever heard of having a flood in this area. Yet these people have been adversely affected. Once these maps have been drawn and approved, the only way a person in a newly affected area can have restitution is to go and spend maybe a thousand or $2,000 hiring a lawyer and then fighting the governmental process, the agency, to prove that they are not in a floodplain. What my bill does and Mr.…”