Port board supports lawsuit over new flood insurance ratings

The Port of Morgan City board voted Monday to support Attorney General Jeff Landry’s lawsuit challenging the new method for setting flood insurance premiums.

Landry says the resulting higher premiums will put many Louisiana homeowners at risk for losing the flood insurance required by their mortgage lenders.

Landry joined other state attorneys general in suing the Federal Emergency Management Agency for information about Risk Rating 2.0, FEMA’s new method for setting National Flood Insurance Program premiums. It’s designed to base premiums on the flood risk for individual properties, rather than setting premiums at the same level for all properties across a ZIP Code.

“With Risk Rating 2.0, individuals will no longer pay more than their share in flood insurance premiums based on the value of their homes,” FEMA says on its web page on the program’s impact on Louisiana.
FEMA estimates that 90% of Louisiana’s 495,000 flood insurance policy-holders will see a decrease or no change in their premiums. Seven percent will see an increase of up to $20 per month, and 3% will pay more than an additional $20 per month.

That 3% represents nearly 15,000 Louisiana property owners.

But Landry and others have said those who pay more may pay hundreds of dollars more. They want to know how Risk Rating 2.0 assesses risk for individual homes.

“So after repeated calls for transparency, and repeated cries from our congressional delegation … with many Louisianans now facing mass foreclosures and further outmigration, we are going to take action,” Landry said at a Thursday press conference announcing the lawsuit against FEMA.

At Monday’s meeting of the Morgan City Harbor and Terminal District Commission, the concern was that homes would be rated for flood risk without taking into account mitigation measures, including St. Mary Parish’s extensive levee system.

The resolution passed Monday said attempts by levee boards, federal legislators and others to determine the rating method “have been passed from one federal office to the next without receiving any meaningful answers to their questions or any documents showing FEMA’s underlying methodology.”

Also Monday, the board heard that three dredges were operating on local waterways, but that was about to change Tuesday.

The Brice Civil Constructors dredge Arulak, designed to combat stick “fluff” mud in the channel close to the Gulf, continues its work, Executive Director Raymond “Mac” Wade said.

The Army Corps of Engineers dredge Jadwin has been working in the area near Berwick Bay, but was due to leave Tuesday. Wade said the massive, 90-year-old dredge is being called away to deal with the rapidly falling Mississippi River.
Dredging in the Bayou Chene has been slowed by a breakdown of the Susan Crosby dredge. The work there is being carried on by a dredge with a smaller capacity.