Informational community meeting explains FEMA Recovery Maps

Case managers and flood experts were on hand to answer the community’s questions Thursday evening on the recently released FEMA recovery maps.

The January 9th debris flow rendered existing FEMA flood maps unusable and it’s a lengthy process to make new ones.

“The community did not have four to five years to wait. This mapping was produced by FEMA to assist and guide us in the recovery that we want to get going,” said Jon Frye, Engineering Manager for the Santa Barbara County Flood Control District.

Despite vocal confusion from the community, Frye says it only takes five minutes to understand the newly released FEMA Recovery Maps.

“This is not a debris flow map. It’s a water map and water behaves very differently then debris,” said Frye.

Frye also says this map is not an evacuation map and doesn’t impact flood insurance.

“This represents a flood but the debris flow potential is still there, and so we continue to urge caution in building in these high hazard areas,” said Frye.

Experts say the recovery maps provide locations and elevations that maximize resiliency.

The yellow on the map represents boundaries of the inundated areas that will get flooded in a 100-year event on a post-burn watershed.

“Every point on that pink line represents a point of equal water surface elevation,” said Frye.

While the different shades of blue correlate to the depth of the water and everything not shaded represents depths of flow six inches and blow.

Naturally, those trying to rebuild their lives came with questions.

“My biggest concern is that it’s not accurate. There are areas where the homes are totally destroyed that are not in the high risk area,” said Mike Davenport.

Those discrepancies have many on edge.

“You quickly see that there are areas in this map that are considered high-risk that in reality are not high-risk areas. Categorizing them as high risk has a big impact to those areas and from the homeowners. It Raises a lot of questions about how safe it is to be in those areas if there is a rain event,” said Davenport.

Officials stress the importance of meeting with a case manager to better understand how the map affects you individually.

The Board of Supervisors will consider adoption of the maps on June 19 and there will be another community meeting on July 11th.

FEMA and Santa Barbara County officials held a community meeting to explain their recently released recovery maps. Watch the meeting below.

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To view the FEMA Recovery Map, click here.