The Federal Emergency Management Agency this week rescinded a new D.C. flood map that would have forced thousands to buy flood insurance and radically altered future downtown development.
In a letter to Mayor Adrian Fenty dated Monday, Harvey Johnson, FEMA’s deputy administrator and chief operating officer, wrote that the proposed modified flood map had been retracted. The letter does not go into further detail.
The revised flood maps, which D.C. officials feared would have “severe adverse land use and economic impacts,” would have incorporated much of the city’s core into the 100-year floodplain, generally between Pennsylvania and Madison avenues and between Third Street Southwest and South Capitol Street.
If the maps had taken effect in September as planned, most homeowners and businesses would have been required to obtain flood insurance with premiums of at least $500, while developers would have been required to meet far more stringent design codes.
In March, FEMA agreed to delay implementation after Fenty said he was “taking immediate action to reduce the health and safety risk to the citizens, businesses, structures and institutions in the District.” FEMA withdrew the new maps for good after D.C., the National Park Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers all agreed to strengthen the National Mall levee system.
D.C. has committed $2.5 million to shore up the levee at 17th Street. The corps plans to permanently close two other clefts in the downtown flood control system, one at 23rd Street and Constitution Avenue and the other at Fort McNair.
Officials are in the process of deciding what actions to take. One option could be the installation of a 500-foot-long concrete sill perpendicular to 17th Street, in which 10-foot-tall steel posts and plates could be quickly installed during a flood.
