Need help with FEMA grant / home elevation process in Jeff Parish

Posted this on Outdoor Board but didn't get any response.

Recently purchased a camp in Grand Isle. (The place is a real dump, but I worked out a deal with the owner and picked it up very cheap….the land alone is worth considerably more than I paid for it. But it needs a LOT of work.) In any event, the structure is two story. It appears that the camp was originally constructed as a one-story camp on cypress pilings (which are below the current flood elevation requirements.) At some point someone must have come along and enclosed the bottom area to make it a living area. (It’s more than just screening the bottom in …. For a portion of the bottom, there are framed walls, and another portion of the bottom contains cinder block walls. But it is fully enclosed, contains kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, living room, etc.) I’m not a structural guy, but it appears these first floor "walls" are NOT load bearing whatsoever. Further, the first floor sits directly on the slab (i.e. there is no tile, flooring, etc…the slab itself is the “flooring”.) It’s also important to point out that the slab is very old and cracked in a couple of areas. Needless to say, the camp needs quite a bit of work on the ground floor just to make it even habitable (replacing all sheet rock/paneling, replacing all kitchen appliances/cabinetry, toilets, showers, etc., etc., etc.)

After inquiring six months ago, I received a call from Jeff Parish and, lo and behold, the camp is eligible for a FEMA elevation grant. (There have been 3 flood claims filed in the past …. The reason no-one found them before is because we were searching under the new address, but we only recently confirmed that the address was changed not too long ago (after the previous flood claims were filed.) But I have to move very quickly – Jeff Parish’s deadline to submit their application is next week. A few questions – (1) does anyone know whether this camp could even be elevated? Unless the whole slab gets raised, this whole place will probably come crashing down as soon as they separate from the slab. With the slab being cracked and leaning in a couple of areas, i don't even see how this could be done. (2) Ideally, I would like to scrap the downstairs area altogether. It appears that FEMA will provide funding to retrofit the structure to make it more sturdy, etc. Would this include “rebuilding” a whole new first floor (which will be elevated on pilings)? (3) finally, the camp is located in the one area of Grand Isle that contains some old oak trees. I believe there is some sort of ordinance that prohibits removing tree branches from these oaks, etc. If this camp is elevated (and it’s two story structure kept intact), some of the larger branches will HAVE to be removed.

Ideally, I would prefer to just make the camp a one-story structure, but increase the one-story to account for the amount of space lost by removing the current ground floor (i.e. I still need space for a kitchen, shower, living area, etc.....as long as the overall square footage remains the same, I would be fine.) Anybody have any experience dealing with this? If so, do I need to reach out to anyone else besides Jeff Parish (i.e. should I be dealing with State OCD as well?)

Any other thoughts or advice or help would be GREATLY appreciated!