Flood Insurance

Tens of thousands of homeowners in Southern California are being forced to buy costly flood insurance because new maps issued by a federal agency say they live in a high-risk flood area. The federal government has informed property owners in more than 150 cities and unincorporated areas in Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside and San Bernardino counties about the new requirement. Most live near rivers and creeks, below dams or in low- lying areas that are at greater risk of flooding than previously believed, according to maps developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Homeowners will see increases in the rates they pay for flood insurance soon, if they haven't already, with owners of vacation homes seeing the biggest jump. But that isn't reason enough to drop coverage. Flood insurance is one of the best deals going. Though floods can bring walls of water 20 feet high, even a few inches of water can cause thousands of dollars in damage. Between 2007 and 2011, the average flood claim fielded by the National Flood Insurance Program was nearly $30,000.

Homeowners will see increases in the rates they pay for flood insurance soon, if they haven't already, with owners of vacation homes seeing the biggest jump. But that isn't reason enough to drop coverage. Flood insurance is one of the best deals going. Though floods can bring walls of water 20 feet high, even a few inches of water can cause thousands of dollars in damage. Between 2007 and 2011, the average flood claim fielded by the National Flood Insurance Program was nearly $30,000.

The mud and floodwaters that ravaged the East Coast when Superstorm Sandy roared ashore three months ago have been supplanted by a sea of red tape, leaving thousands of residents and businesses in limbo as they await insurance funds or help from the federal government. Some have used savings or loans to get back into their homes or reopen businesses. Others remain in temporary housing or hotels, or face the winter in frigid, unfinished housing, resulting in a staggered state of recovery that bodes ill for a region trying to make itself whole again.

People with flood insurance underwritten by the National Flood Insurance Program can now get more help with the extra cost of rebuilding or altering flood-damaged structures to comply with local flood plain management ordinances, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

New flood plain maps will be released today, relieving all property owners along the Santa Ana River from Garfield to Slater avenues from mandatory flood insurance, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) announced Tuesday. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which had required flood insurance for property within the flood plain, has determined that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' 12-year, $1.

Premiums for flood insurance for a single-family home vary from as low as $75 to nearly $2,000 a year. The cost depends on a number of factors, such as the value of the property, whether it's in a minimal flood area or high-risk flood zone, when it was built and if it is built to minimize flood hazards. A maximum $185,000 of building coverage is available for single family residences; $250,000 for multifamily residences and $60,000 for content coverage on all residential buildings.

Hundreds of South Los Angeles homeowners will no longer be required to buy costly flood insurance after a federal agency decided that it had mistakenly put them in a high-hazard zone. After reviewing new topographic data, the Federal Emergency Management Agency removed 876 parcels in the Parks Mesa Heights neighborhood, according to a Dec. 28 letter from FEMA to the Los Angeles Department of Public Works. FEMA added the homes to existing flood-hazard zones when it updated maps in June 2008.

About half of the homeowners who live in federally designated flood plains do not have flood insurance, a nationwide study indicates. The Rand Corp. reported that about 60% of homeowners in the South and West have flood insurance, compared with 20% to 30% in the Midwest and Northeast. The report also found that homeowners in coastal areas are more likely to have flood insurance than those in landlocked regions.

The city has met the requirements for participation in the National Flood Insurance Program, which permits residents to purchase flood insurance coverage. Coverage is available for most walled and roofed buildings that are primarily above ground and for the building's contents. The insurance limit for single-family homes is $35,000 and $10,000 for the contents. The limit for other buildings is $100,000 for both building and contents. Most renters can insure the contents of their residence.

WASHINGTON - House Speaker John A. Boehner on Wednesday set a Jan. 15 vote on a Superstorm Sandy relief bill after enraged Northeast politicians - including Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a fellow Republican - blasted the speaker for skipping action on disaster aid in the final hours of the current Congress. Boehner scheduled the vote after a parade of officials from storm-ravaged New York, New Jersey and Connecticut criticized the Ohio Republican for refusing to allow a vote on a $60-billion aid package before the end of this congressional session.

POINT PLEASANT, N.J. - About a month ago, Lori Rebimbas stood inside the darkened ruins of her flooded house and wept. When the mother of two returned last week there were no tears. “I'm done crying,” she said. In the days and weeks after the storm , Rebimbas, 41, felt stranded. A Federal Emergency Management Agency inspector had deemed her home uninhabitable. Her two cars had flooded. Her family had nowhere to stay, and with many along the Jersey Shore scrambling for rentals , Rebimbas was afraid she would have to move and pull her two boys out of school in Point Pleasant.

This year, Aiman Youssef is thankful to be alive. The 42-year-old Staten Island man said he used to have a $300,000 house he could be thankful for, and a car, and two vans full of things he was going to sell on EBay. Then Superstorm Sandy ruined all that and the rest of his neighborhood too, so just being alive is the best he can ask for right now. "It's survival - that's what it is now," said Youssef, who sleeps in a tent, where it gets cold early in the morning, around 3 or 4 a.m. especially.

VALLEY STREAM, N.Y. - Six days after Sandy blasted the south shore of Long Island, Robert Brown's street smells like low tide. He lives three doors down from a creek that feeds into Jamaica Bay on the eastern edge of John F. Kennedy International Airport. During last Monday's storm, he saw the creek water rise out of the storm drain and inch its way up the block like a killer blob of slime in a horror movie. In an hour, it was at his doorstep. His 30-year-old daughter Melissa's bedroom in the basement was submerged.

Coliseum games Re " Coliseum probe brings three arrests ," March 23, and " Coliseum case widens; six charged ," March 24 What explains the fact that a newspaper usually is the originating source that produces an investigation into financial irregularities or other illegal activity? Why is it not a city, county or state agency - which, theoretically, employ people whose job it is to prevent or uncover precisely this type of wrongdoing? If our government agencies are so incompetent, why do we bother paying for multiple layers of bureaucracy?

When the Supreme Court takes up the 2010 healthcare reform law this week, the legal and political arguments will be in near-perfect alignment. And the stakes couldn't be higher on either front. The court briefs echo the themes that President Obama's Republican rivals are sounding on the campaign trail: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which they derisively call "Obamacare," is an attack on freedom, epitomizing the administration's disregard for constitutional limits on federal power and disrespect for citizens' rights to make decisions for themselves.

In the middle of winter, when the temperature slips toward zero and bone-numbing winds blow in off the prairie, living in a Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer may not be hell — it's way too cold for that — but as the saying goes, you can see it from here. "We basically live in a 400-square-foot icebox," said Shanda Cool, who lost not only her house, but the boutique artisan bakery she was on the verge of opening before the Souris River flooded most of central Minot last June.

Laguna Beach city officials are challenging a federal floodplain map that could require Canyon Acres property owners to buy flood insurance policies. The Federal Emergency Management Agency's map of the so-called 100-year floodplain is based on aerial photographs of areas that generate enough runoff to create a problem. City officials contend that the map relied on outdated information, and they have submitted a hydrology study to make their case. "The map was done on an extremely broad-brushed level," said city engineer Steve May, director of the Public Works Department.