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Village of Lansing Trustees are going forward with paperwork that will make Village residents eligible to purchase flood insurance.  When resident Don Lein approached the Village last May Trustee John O'Neill began making calls to learn what the Village must do so that residents could qualify under the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).  "The regulations and programs that we have in place cover all the requirements," he told the board Monday, "except for reporting, but (Code Enforcement and Zoning Officer Ben Curtis)  says he can pull that out."


Six months later O'Neill finally had enough information to ask the Trustees to approve a resolution to apply to be a part of the program.  While there is no direct cost to the village O'Neill says there is a reporting requirement that will take some Village employee time.  Trustees voted to apply, and O'Neill said he would follow up with the application process.

In Washington the district's U.S. Congressman Michael A. Arcuri and Patrick J. Murphy of Pensylvannia managed to add an amendment to the Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization Act of 2007 (H.R. 3121) to create an independent office within the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) to simplify the process of making flood claims.  Arcuri says the process is overly complicated now, and the amendment, which passed in the House of Representatives on September 27, will help residents navigate it.

"The City of Oneonta and much of the Southern Tier region were devastated last year by severe flooding and many local communities are still in the process of fully recovering," said Arcuri. "All too often over the last few months, I've seen constituents' lives turned upside-down by flood damage, trapped in a seemingly endless bureaucratic mess - unable to access the funds they need to rebuild. Although my office can be a resource in these situations, we need a better system.  This amendment will help reduce the red tape and bureaucratic backlogs that have prevented local businesses and families from receiving flood insurance claims by creating an agent within FEMA to be an advocate for families and businesses."

That may help Village residents in the case of a flood, but it certainly wouldn't help municipalities to get the information they need.  After being asked to investigate the program Village officials took nearly a month to get a straight answer from FEMA and NFIP officials on whether their residents were currently eligible for their insurance or any flood insurance at all.  There was some confusion because the Town of Lansing is part of the program, so its residents are eligible for the insurance.  But defining when the Village is part of the Town and when it is a separate municipality isn't as simple as you would think.  Multiple phone calls resulted in different answers before Village officials finally found someone who could tell them that 1) the Village is not currently part of the program, and b) what needed to be done to join it.

If H.R. 3121 is signed into law it will make the Flood Insurance Program more financially sound by phasing out unnecessary subsidies such as subsidized rates on commercial properties, vacation homes, and second homes built before 1974, and encourage participation in the Flood Insurance Program by providing for a new community outreach program and study of how to increase participation by low-income families.   It will require FEMA to report to Congress annually on the financial status of the Flood Insurance Program as well as oblige them to conduct a thorough review of the nation's flood maps and make updating and modernization of flood maps an ongoing process.  It addresses some of the program's weaknesses exposed by the 2005 hurricane season. Small business owners will be eligible to purchase business interruption coverage at actuarial rates to better prepare them to meet payroll and other obligations during the next big storm.  Finally, it will improve consumer protections by clarifying the disclosures that must be made to consumers about flood insurance.

"It took almost one whole year after the disaster for FEMA to fully reimburse the city for repairs to public infrastructure severely damaged during the floods," Arcuri said when he introduced the amendment last week.  "Even after many months of persistence at the regional FEMA office, the city was left with no recourse and had to seek my office’s assistance and intervention.  Finally, after encountering hurdle after hurdle for a year, the city received their reimbursement from FEMA."

O'Neill says the application and reporting will take some time, and Village officials feared that with their limited resources it might interfere with the rather hefty storm water reporting that is newly required by New York State.  "The problem is that our residents won't be able to get the flood insurance until we've dotted the Is and crossed the Ts," O'Neill said.  Village Attorney David David Dubow recommended that both be handled simultaneously to meet State deadlines while servicing residents who want the insurance.

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