• Know floodplain regulations.flood image by Gail Ranney from Fotolia.com
  
  The Katrina and Rita hurricane disasters of 2005 have highlighted the importance of flood insurance coverage. According to the General Printing Office website, the office of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will not give monies to any flood-prone areas not participating in the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). The NFIP has strict rules for participation in the program, which must be followed by the administrator of any given community.
  
  

Maps and Data

• The community administrator must base his floodplain management regulations on the maps FEMA puts out. According to the FEMA website, in order for the community to participate in the NFIP, the community standards must meet or exceed the FEMA guidelines. The administrator must keep abreast of new FEMA publications and be ready to revise regulations based on new maps which may include the revision of data concerning boundaries, flood elevation figures and FIRM (Flood Insurance Rate Map) zones.
  
  

Federal vs. Community Rules

• The rules the community makes must meet or exceed the standards for flood regulations set by the United States government. These guidelines are a minimum figure, and the agency encourages and sometimes even rewards initiative to exceed them. Yet the FEMA website warns that if your standards do exceed federal guidelines, you should let them know and seek approval from that office.
  
  

A Zones

• According to the FEMA website, A-zones are special flood hazard areas. FEMA says that if the administrator has designated A-zones that have no prior water elevation data, before she hands in a development proposal for any area that is at least 5 acres, or 50 lots, whichever is lesser, she must find such data and include it in her report. She must require that any building and development projects in that area meet the most current FEMA codes.
  
  

Permit Rules

• FEMA states that communities must require a development permit. The website uses "development permit" purposely to avoid the notion that only a building permit is necessary. Your permit requirement must cover every aspect of the development process, including building, storage of materials, excavation, drilling, mining and repairs. If current codes don't require this, then the community administration must revise them.
  
  

Encroachment Evaluation

• The community administrator must evaluate the development to make sure that the project does not increase flood stages by more than 1 foot in the event of a flood. FEMA points out that that is true for all development proposals in addition to the projects your community has proposed. Pay special attention to structures such as bridges, buildings, road embankments, and large fills; they tend to drive flood stages above 1 foot.