Tell Americans the truth about their flood risk

The Federal Emergency Management Agency review council’s final report, released May 7, drew headlines for its big structural proposals to replace disaster programs and shift the National Flood Insurance Program toward the private market. 

All of that deserves serious debate. But buried inside is a quieter proposal that may matter more to ordinary Americans than anything else. The council calls on FEMA to improve the quality and transparency of flood-risk data and to revise the maps to align with modernized mapping data. 

In plain English: Fix the maps. Tell people the truth about where flood risk actually is. It is the right call, and long overdue.

In September 2022, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told CNN’s Dana Bash what every homeowner should have heard: “Our flood maps don’t take into account excessive rain that comes in,” even as “we are seeing these record rainfalls.” FEMA’s maps, she said, “are really focused on riverine flooding and coastal flooding.” Her conclusion: “People need to understand what their risk is.”

She had just confirmed that the government’s official flood-risk tool, which determines who must buy insurance, where development is allowed and how lenders assess exposure, does not account for the rainfall that was, at that moment, impacting Jackson, Miss., and leaving 150,000 people without clean water. 

The technical problem is severe and well-documented. FEMA’s Flood Insurance Rate Maps were built as regulatory tools, not as precision risk instruments. Many areas still rely on rainfall data unchanged since the 1970s. 

When the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration updated its........

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