By DAVID A. LIEB
Associated Press

Conflicting federal policies may force thousands of residents in flood-prone areas to pay more for flood insurance or be left unaware of danger posed by dams built upstream from their homes and worksites, according to an Associated Press review of federal records and data.

The problem stems from a complex set of flood policies and some national security precautions taken after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

To get the best discount on flood insurance, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s points-based rating system requires communities to chart all the homes, businesses and critical facilities endangered by a potential dam failure and warn people of their risk. But that’s difficult or even impossible in some communities, because other federal agencies restrict the release of such information for hundreds of dams that they own or regulate across the U.S., citing security risks.

The quandary has persisted for years, though federal officials have been warned of its implications.

Federal “dam information sharing procedures costs communities points, homeowners money, and potentially citizens lives,” a California emergency services official warned in a January 2020 presentation to FEMA‘s National Dam Safety Review Board at an invitation-only meeting attended by dozens of federal and state officials.

The meeting’s minutes were provided to the AP this summer, nearly two-and-half years after the news organization submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to .

Since that meeting, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has begun publicly posting maps of areas that could be flooded if one of its hundreds of dams were to fail. But similar information remains restricted by other federal agencies, including by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which regulates about 1,800 power-producing dams, and by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, whose 430 dams in the western U.S. include some of the nation’s largest structures.

The Bureau of Reclamation said in response to questions from the AP that it is revising its policies and will start sharing more information about dam-failure inundation zones in 2025, though it said the process could take more than eight years to complete for all its dams.

Meanwhile, FEMA is accepting public comment through Sept. 9 on potential revisions to its Community Rating System, which awards discounts on flood insurance in communities that take steps to reduce risks. During a FEMA public hearing Wednesday, the floodplain administrator for Phoenix — the nation’s fifth largest city — raised concerns that the conflicting federal policies regarding dam flood zones were unfair to communities trying to get better insurance discounts for their residents.

“I believe this is a punishment to us,” Phoenix floodplain administrator Nazar Nabaty told FEMA officials.

One community’s frustrations

Another community that has been affected by the information-sharing gap is Sacramento, California, which ranks among the most at-risk regions in the U.S. for catastrophic flooding. California’s capital sits at the confluence of two rivers and about 25 miles downstream from Folsom Dam, a large Bureau of Reclamation structure with a capacity that could cover the equivalent of the entire state of Rhode Island with a foot of water.

During a review about five years ago, Sacramento County achieved one of the best-ever scores in FEMA’s rating system. But the county did not qualify for the top flood-insurance discount because the Bureau of Reclamation’s restrictions regarding Folsom Dam made it impossible to meet FEMA’s criteria for mapping and public outreach about a potential dam break, said George Booth, the county’s former floodplain manager.

“We got wrapped around the axle,” said Booth, now executive director of the , a professional organization that focuses on flood-risk reduction in California, Hawaii and Nevada.

The city of Sacramento, which receives a separate flood insurance rating, has faced similar struggles meeting FEMA’s standards for flood insurance discounts because of limited information about Bureau of Reclamation dams, said Rosa Millino, the city’s Community Rating System coordinator.

For an individual homeowner, the missed discounts could make about $100 difference in annual flood insurance premiums. When spread citywide, the extra cost could reach several million dollars. When costs are higher, fewer people tend to buy insurance. But there’s more at stake than just insurance premiums.

“People need to be informed of the potential dangers of living in an area that’s protected by a dam,” Millino said.

Flood risks and costs

As the climate changes, heavy rains from intense storms have put communities at increased risk of flooding and placed the nation’s aging dams in greater jeopardy of failing. That’s been evident as recent floodwaters damaged or breached dams in Georgia, Minnesota, New York, South Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin, forcing evacuations and costly repairs.

Floods have caused about $108 billion of damage in the U.S. since 2000, according to FEMA. Standard home and commercial property insurance does not cover flood damage.

But FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program is available in 22,692 communities that have adopted and enforced floodplain management regulations. As of the end of July, it provided $1.3 trillion of flood insurance coverage to about 4.7 million policyholders — down about 1 million policies since the program’s peak participation in 2009.

Premium discounts ranging from 5 percent to 45 percent are available in jurisdictions that participate in FEMA’s Community Rating System, a voluntary program begun in 1990 that grades flood mitigation and safety measures on a 1-to-10 scale. A Class 1 rating earns the largest discount.

Most communities don’t seek the extra savings. Just 1,500 local governments take part in the Community Rating System, though they account for three-quarters of policies issued under the National Flood Insurance Program. Just two communities — Roseville, California, and Tulsa, Oklahoma — have achieved the top discount for their residents.

Roseville, which also is near Folsom Dam, used FEMA grant money to create its own inundation maps showing the affects of a potential dam failure. But the city still encountered difficulties trying to share that information with residents. While presenting the inundation data at a public meeting over a decade ago, consultant Rob Flaner said a Bureau of Reclamation official interrupted and told him to stop.

“It was ironic that one federal agency funded it,” Flaner said. “It was like, `Ummm, maybe you guys need to talk to each other.'”

Roseville has since satisfied both federal agencies by creating inundation maps that show the overlapping flood potential of multiple dams without identifying the specific dam failure that could affect each home, business or important site, Flaner said. But Roseville is the exception, not the norm.

“There’s a lot of jurisdictions that can’t meet the requirements because they can’t get the maps, or a federal agency is saying, `No, do not do outreach downstream of our dam,'” said Flaner, who has worked with nearly 300 local governments over three decades, first as a Community Rating System specialist on behalf of FEMA and then as a hired consultant.

Security concerns

FEMA says it is important for communities to have access to dam-failure inundation maps in order to warn residents in harm’s way, That’s because dam failures can spread floodwaters beyond normal high-risk areas and affect multiple communities downstream.

But after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, some federal agencies cited national security grounds while refusing to release certain information about dams. They said dams could become targets if terrorists knew the potential to cause devastating flooding.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission continues to categorize dam inundation maps as critical infrastructure information that “could be useful to a person planning an attack” and requires those receiving such information to sign non-disclosure agreements, said FERC spokesperson Celeste Miller. But FERC can’t prevent a dam owner from independently sharing the information.

The Bureau of Reclamation also has required non-disclosure agreements when sharing dam inundation maps and emergency action plans with local officials. Under its upcoming policy change, the bureau will allow communities to publicly share information about dam inundation zones, including potential flood-wave travel times, flood depths and durations, said Sandy Day, the bureau’s chief of public affairs.

The Army Corps of Engineers, which also had shielded certain information about its dams, began posting dam inundation maps online in late 2021 after determining that releasing the information “is more beneficial to the public than any risk of misuse,” Corps spokesperson Gene Pawlik said.

A complex system

Three years ago, FEMA sought public input about ways to revamp the Community Rating System to better incentivize communities to reduce flood risks. Several commenters highlighted difficulties in getting credit for dam initiatives, including the reluctance of federal agencies to share information regarding inundation zones from dam failures.

Nothing immediate came from the 2021 review. Though FEMA is again seeking public input on potential changes to the Community Rating System, it doesn’t plan to make any changes until 2026.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office has suggested a substantial overhaul may be necessary. In a report last year, the GAO found that the premium discounts offered under FEMA’s rating system are not actuarially justified. Mapping projects, flood warning procedures and public information campaigns may have some value, the report said, but don’t reduce the flood risk of currently insured properties.

Some local officials contend FEMA’s Community Rating System is too costly and complex, especially for governments with small budgets and staffs. The rating system has about 100 items for which communities can earn points, often requiring extensive documentation. The dam safety section is among the most challenging — just four communities got any points for their local efforts during the most recent evaluation, according to FEMA data.

During its last review, Fort Collins, Colorado, earned more than 5,000 points in the Community Rating System — the most of any community, according to FEMA data. Yet the city failed to get a Class 1 ranking, because it didn’t meet criteria about potential dam failures or promoting flood insurance. The area has about 20 high-hazard dams that could result in loss of life if they failed.

“We do know where the dams are,” said Ken Sampley, the city’s water engineering director. “But we don’t have as detailed information and direct coordination with a lot of the dam owners as may be required.”

Thurston County, Washington, which is home to the state capital of Olympia, spends almost $200,000 a year to maintain its Class 2 rating in the flood insurance program, resulting in collective premium savings of slightly less than that for residents, said Mark Biever, who coordinated the county’s efforts from 2019-2023. But the county decided it wasn’t worth it to try for a Class 1 rating, in part because staff didn’t have the resources to compile all the information about dams, he said.

The rating process is frustrating and incredibly time-consuming, Biever said. Though it’s resulted in a 40 percent discount for about 600 flood-insurance policyholders, “nobody’s every called and said, `Hey thanks for all that extra effort,'” Biever added.

None of Thurston County’s cities and towns participate in the Community Rating System, meaning the county’s flood-insurance discount is only available in unincorporated areas.

In Bucoda, a rural Thurston County town nestled along the twisting Skookumchuck River, the high cost of flood insurance means homeowners often skip it unless required to buy it by a mortgage holder, said James Fowler, the town’s fire chief and planning commission chair. Yet the town is just 10 miles downstream from a dam.

“If that dam that’s on that reservoir was to fail, it would be catastrophic flooding,” Fowler said. “In a couple hours, there would be 20 feet of water in the town.”

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By Amy Taxin and Jae C. Hong

The Associated Press

LEMOORE, Calif. — Ron Caetano is packed and ready to go. His family photos and valuables are in the trailer, and he’s put food in totes. He moved the family’s rabbits and chickens and their automatic feeders to higher ground.

Caetano and his family and dogs could get out in less than an hour, they figure, should more heavy rain or hot weather melt so much mountain snow that gushing water overwhelms the rivers and channel that surround their tight-knit, rural Island District community.

“The water is coming this way,” said Caetano, who started a Facebook group to help organize his neighbors. “I am preparing for the worst and praying for the best and that’s all we can do.”

After more than a dozen atmospheric rivers on California, a reservoir that stores water upstream is expected to receive three times its capacity in the coming months. Caetano and his neighbors in the tree-lined Island District, home to a school, pistachio orchards and horse ranches about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, could soon be marooned by rising rivers or flooded out.

Water managers are concerned that the spring snowmelt in the Sierra Nevada will be so massive that the north fork of the Kings River won’t be able to contain it and carry it toward the Pacific Ocean. Much of the water is being channeled into the river’s south fork, which winds through the area near the small city of Lemoore to fill a vast basin.

More than a century ago, that basin was an enormous body of fresh water known as Tulare Lake – the largest west of the Mississippi River. It would grow in winter as snowmelt streamed down from the mountains. But over time, settlers dammed and diverted waterways to irrigate crops, and the lake went dry. Now, Tulare Lake reappears only during the rainiest years, like this one, covering what is now a vast swath of farmland with water.

Today, paved roads sit beneath the lake’s lapping waves, and utility poles and trees jut out above the water. Fields that typically grow wheat, tomatoes and other crops lie underneath.

The Pine Flat Reservoir about 50 miles upstream can hold up to 1 million acre feet of water but is expected to receive more than 3 million acre feet this spring from snowmelt, said David Merritt, general manager of the Kings River Conservation District. Officials have been forced to increase the flow of water out of the reservoir to make space for more, he said.

“Once we’re at capacity, now you’re putting a lot of stress on those conveyance channels,” Merritt said. “It’s a very fast-moving stream and it’s very deep right now.”

Island District residents have revived a decades-old network of neighbors for the first time since 1983 to assist each other in the event of a crisis. The previous time the Island Property Protection Association was activated, there was no such thing as text messages or even emails to quickly spread the word, said Tony Oliveira, a former county supervisor and the network’s administrator.

In a week, more than 200 people, via the network, volunteered to help neighbors. The group’s website received more than 4,000 hits.

“It’s going to be four months of holding our breath,” Oliveira said.

The winter rains were welcomed by California’s parched cities and desperate growers, who have been grappling with intense drought for the past several years. The state has long tended toward wet and dry periods, but scientists at University of California, San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography have said they expect climate change will lead to drier dry years and wetter wet years.

What will determine how communities fare now is how quickly the weather heats up. If temperatures remain cool, snow will melt slowly, with water gradually flowing from the mountains. But a hot spell could send massive amounts of water churning through rivers that could potentially overflow, officials said. A beaver or a squirrel that tears a hole in a levee could also bring trouble.

Recent rising temperatures have many residents on edge. Park officials announced plans to  due to the threat of flooding. Reservations for campgrounds and lodging in eastern Yosemite Valley will automatically be canceled and refunded.

Michael Anderson, California’s state climatologist, said water inflows into some reservoirs are expected to double, though he doesn’t expect the warming trend to cause immediate flooding in residential areas.

But that could change in the coming weeks and months. Gov. Gavin Newsom visited the reemerged lake on April 25 and said the worst is likely yet to come as more water reaches the basin.

“Where we’re standing likely will be underwater in a matter of weeks, if not months,” he said. “That’s very sobering.”

It isn’t the first time Kings County, home to 150,000 people in the fertile San Joaquin Valley, has faced these challenges.

Many longtime residents recall when Tulare Lake reappeared 40 years ago. Officials believe crops will remain under water much longer this time due to the massive snowpack, said Dusty Ference, executive director of the Kings County Farm Bureau. To date, more than 60,000 acres of farmland have flooded, he said.

Tulare Lake returned on a smaller scale in 1997, said Nicholas Pinter, associate director of the University of California, Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. The lake has always fluctuated in size due to California’s highly variable water cycle, and farmers have long known there would be periods like this, he said.

“It has been an engineering problem all along,” he said. “This is a bathtub with no drain.”

Near the lake, the city of Corcoran – home to 22,000 people, including 8,000 state prisoners – began emergency construction to raise a levee that protects the community. The water behind the levee is already at 178 feet, just 10 feet below the top. Officials want to raise the levee 3.5 feet more, city officials said.

“If that water rises above that amount, we will have water coming into our city and we will be in a critical situation,” said Greg Gatzka, Corcoran’s city manager.

In the Island District, residents don’t have a levee to protect them. They snap photos of wooden sticks placed near waterways to gauge water levels and banks and post them online to keep others informed. They’re helping place sandbags on elderly neighbors’ properties and paying close attention to reports from water and county officials, and from each other.

Oliveira, whose family has lived in the area for generations, said he remembers moving cattle and horses when the rains came in 1983, and will do the same this time, if necessary.

“We’re farmers,” he said. “We have bulldozers and backhoes. We have trailers. We can bring things to bear sometimes faster than the public agencies can. The people who live in the Island are just kind of those neighbors taking care of neighbors.”

Editor’s note: Taxin reported from Orange County, California.

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By Tom Foreman Jr.

The Associated Press

PRINCEVILLE, N.C. – As Carolyn Suggs Bandy exits her hometown’s only restaurant clutching an order of cabbage and hush puppies, she pauses to boast about a place that stakes its claim as the oldest town chartered by Black Americans.

“It is sacred to me,” said Bandy, 65. “We got roots in this town.”

Yet historic Princeville, nearly 140 years old, is one hurricane away from disaster.

The city is on the banks of the Tar River in eastern North Carolina. With an ever-changing climate, future hurricanes are likely to be more intense. And melting glaciers are causing sea levels to rise, making more flooding inevitable.

Princeville’s future rests not only on flood protection but also younger generations choosing to stay. The latest U.S. Census puts the town’s population at 1,254. In 2020, the median income was $33,325.

Gaining new residents will require providing opportunities that make the move worth it, or convincing young families to stay.

Mayor Bobbie Jones, in his second term, is a full-time school principal who lives in Princeville but commutes one hour each way to his job in Hertford County. History compels him – and others – to work for his town’s survival, he said.

“These are sacred grounds,” Jones said. “These are sacred African-American grounds.”

Princeville was incorporated in 1885 by former slaves on swampy, low-lying land. The town grew from a population of 379 in 1880 to 552 at the turn of the century. It had a school, churches and businesses.

The town has endured racism, bigotry and attempts by white neighbors to erase it from existence.

Today, Princeville features single-family homes interspersed with empty homes that have been boarded up and abandoned following the two latest floods. One church sits with its windows covered in plywood.

Commerce focuses on a small strip where a barber shop and a liquor store flank a convenience store where residents can get snack foods, buy lottery tickets and fill their cars with gasoline. A separate building holds the small sit-down restaurant where Bandy got her food.

Princeville is in a bad spot when it comes to hurricanes because of its position on the Tar River. The town lies 124 miles from the Atlantic Ocean at the edge of North Carolina’s Coastal Plain, an area where the biggest threat from tropical weather tends to be rain, not wind. When slow-moving storms come ashore and move inland, drenching rains that can extend far from the core of the storm drain into the rivers and flood towns along the banks.

If not hurricanes, then ocean levels could be a threat, according to a summary of the state’s climate written by North Carolina State University.

Melting glaciers add water to the ocean, and seawater increases in volume when it warms up, the report says.

Attempts to protect the town from floodwaters have been mixed.

In 1967, the Army Corps of Engineers completed an earthen dike along the Tar River’s southern bank. Nearly 3 miles long and up to 49 feet above sea level, the levee surrounds the town on three sides.

For more than 30 years, it held nature at bay. Then, in September 1999, Hurricane Floyd hit.

Swollen by rain, pushed by winds, the river surged over, around and even under the dike, washing homes from their foundations and the dead from their graves.

“When Floyd came, it seemed like the end of the world,” said Navy veteran Alex Noble, 84. “It seemed like you just were turned outdoors. You know, everything was wide open.”

In the spring of 2016, after years of study, the Corps announced plans to try and prevent another disaster. The levee would be extended, roads would be raised, and gates would be installed in culverts to prevent water from passing through the dike.

Just a few months after that announcement, Hurricane Matthew struck, and with it came more devastating flooding.

In response, Congress approved nearly $40 million to better protect the town. The money was appropriated in 2020, but as another hurricane season approaches, nothing has happened.

Despite the delays, Col. Benjamin A. Bennett, commander of the Corps’ Wilmington district, said Princeville is a priority.

“We have a team of engineers every single day and a large part of our district focused on Princeville,” he said. “We are actively tweaking our design and trying to optimize the engineering, and running models to make sure that we protect Princeville without causing problems somewhere else.”

Meanwhile, as Princeville’s population ages, young people ultimately will have to succeed them to keep the town moving forward. And currently it has neither its own industry nor significant commercial outlets.

Luring new business into Princeville will likely involve incentives such as tax breaks – the kind that are offered by state governments seeking to land a major manufacturer.

Housing is also an issue. While some homes are being elevated, other homeowners have accepted buyouts from the North Carolina hazard mitigation grant program.

Despite the many challenges, those who live in Princeville aren’t ready to give up.

Noble, who came to Princeville with his wife in 1963, thinks of the freed slaves who built the town, and what they might say to today’s residents.

“You know, they always said, ‘Don’t give up. Don’t give up,’” he said. “And that’s what we got to do – stick with it. … You know, we didn’t come this far to turn around.”

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