re: AE Flood zone?

I would never buy a house that flooded in 2016 or build a house not elevated enough to have avoided that 2016 flood.

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Broke

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Would you buy a home in a an AE flood zone that flooded in 2016? How big of a risk is this and what would the chances be that it floods again?

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Answer: It depends.

For starters, you need to ask the owner-or your/the seller's realtor-for a copy of the most recent Elevation Certificate. They had to have one done when the home was built so don't let them hem and haw you about not having one. They may not be able to find it, but they more than likely got one done.

Your Parish Permit Office can also probably help you pull a historical EC that was on file or pulled when the structure was built.

There's a difference in what your ground elevation is and the structure of your home's elevation is. Many homes that are Slab-on-Grade (SOG) have had a dirt pad built up to allow for the slab to be poured. That slab is several inches tall. Then fill is brought in to slope the slab based on either preference or local applicable ordinance.

The elevation of the slab and the, "Lowest Adjacent Grade," (or LAG) of the ground around the slab (as well as any utilities servicing your structure like the HVAC, etc) are going to be what determines whether or not the structure itself is in fact in an AE Flood Zone.

The entire area may be on a normal Flood Map considered in an AE Flood Zone. But due to fill dirt and slab elevation and LAG, the structure may actually have been LOMA'd (Letter of Map Amendment) or LOMAR-F'd out of the flood zone entirely when they shot the elevation and determined it is now above the AE Flood Zone.

So in summation, a lot of it has to do with your foundation type, the elevation via fill and slab and lowest adjacent grade, etc.

Having said that...There are a lot of folks posting here who are totally uninformed. When you ask what the risk is for a structure that flooded in 2016 flooding again, it's complete conjecture to answer that question accurately based on the information given.

Thousands of homes flooded in 2016 that are legitimately in Flood Zone X, which should theoretically only be susceptible to an event on par with the severity of a, "500-year flood," per NFIP & FEMA standards. This is because the 2016 Flood was an event the severity of which was so intense and atypical we don't have a means or method of accurately comparing it to a 10-year, 25-year or 50-year storm event that many local ordinances and risk-rating policies are based on.

It was a Biblical Flood. One that no amount of mitigation, elevations and floodplain management could have avoided for many people. Some may have benefited and avoided its impacts, but for most, there's simply not a way to avoid a Biblical flood like that.

But for those that say, "We didn't flood in 2016, we're good," You're confused. If the storm that created the event in 2016 would've come through our area 5-10 miles North or 5-10 miles more Southerly, or became stationary 5-10 miles more Westerly or Easterly than it did, then the flooding and the impacted areas would have been much, much different. Simply because there is different topography and drainage in our area based on your location.

Trying to figure out whether a property is floodprone based on 2016 is not possible.

Bottom line: Go get an Elevation Certificate (EC) pulled on the property if the homeowner doesn't have one and you can't get one from the Parish Permit or Floodplain Administrator's Office.

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And before the naysayers tout "if I buy a X property why would I need it??"

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We live in an X zone and got 10 inches in 2016. We didn't have flood insurance before the flood because not only were we not in a flood-prone area, our area had not flooded in the entire history of EBR. Needless to say, we have it now.

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I’d be more worried about resale than actually flooding myself. You’re gonna limit your buyer pool.

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good point I was going to make

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pool

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iswydt