OPINION — If your home isn’t in a federally designated flood zone, flooding might seem like someone else’s problem. No one requires you to buy flood insurance, and the map suggests you’re in the clear. But reality may be very different.
Mounting evidence reveals that significantly more homes are at risk of flooding than is indicated by FEMA’s 100-year flood maps — about 6 million more, and 14.6 million properties in all, by one estimate. The official maps are commonly outdated, and some are two decades old. Even when updated, they typically rely on historical flood data rather than future risk projections.
But there’s another problem that redrawing the lines won’t solve.
