Recommendations by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for landowners in Trumann, Ark., to purchase flood insurance are nothing more than a scam, a levee district official told a crowd of concerned residents on May 1.
“FEMA is taking an area of debt that they have and they are trying to expand, and they are trying to get money, and this is the only way they have to do it,” said Rob Rash, CEO and chief engineer of the St. Francis Levee District, during a candidate forum at Trumann High School.
“FEMA officials in Washington, D.C., looked me in the eye and said, ‘We owe $20 billion to the U.S. Treasury, and the only way we have to get it is through flood insurance premiums,”‘ Rash told the candidates. “Please don’t be fooled by this.”
Those attending the forum included six candidates for the 1st District congressional seat.
FEMA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are reviewing levees and flood zones using the Flood Map Modernization Plan. Supporters of the plan say the new regulation will improve levee security in a flood-prone area, while opponents say the plan will cost residents millions of dollars in increased flood-insurance premiums.
Rash said the federal agencies are using a 100-year flood event scenario to justify the new maps, but the 1927 flooding to which they are referring left the water level 16 feet below the top of the levee. That flooding event led to the 1928 Flood Control Act.
Rash said the St. Francis Levee District has held up much better over the years than levees in other parts of the Mississippi River and Tributaries project because of a larger initial investment and continued maintenance and improvements.
Severe flooding two years ago devastated other parts of the Delta, but water levels locally left the levees with 8 feet to spare, Rash said.
He acknowledged there are areas of localized flooding, but he said they do not warrant the type of coverage recommended by FEMA.
“This is a scam, and that’s all that it is,” he said.
“We’ve got to stop this, and candidates, I beg you – when you go to Washington, D.C., this is what you’re going to face: You have a bureaucracy that’s trying to expand,” he said. “The reason that the private sector is not involved in flood insurance is because it’s not profitable. FEMA is trying to take it to a profitable status.”
Information from: The Jonesboro Sun, http://www.jonesborosun.com
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