PANAMA CITY — Sal Albano said his family is among those in the Martinique subdivision who are struggling to make ends meet as a result of high insurance rates resulting from their community being in a coastal flood map for St. Andrews State Park.
Because their community is included in the map, residents cannot obtain affordable flood insurance through the federal government. They can buy private flood insurance, which can cost as much as $50,000 annually.
To no avail, Bay County officials have been trying to convince Congress to take that community behind Capt. Anderson’s restaurant, as well as the nearby Finisterre and Bonefish Pointe subdivisions, out of the federal flood map.
On Tuesday, the Bay County Commission approved of a resolution urging Congress to remove the subdivisions from the Coastal Barrier Resource Act flood map created to include St. Andrews State Park.
“The mapping error has prevented residents in these areas from obtaining affordable flood insurance,” the county’s agenda material states.
The bank financing Albano’s home has added private flood insurance onto his mortgage payment, causing his mortgage payment to double to $3,900 a month.
“I’m not wealthy,” said Albano, who is a maintenance engineer for a local condominium. “I have a disabled child with autism. (The mortgage payment) kills me.”
Albano’s wife is a real estate agent, and he said they struggle to cover the monthly mortgage payment.
“You have to do what you have to do,” he said. “I can’t help it. I can’t get out of it. I tried.”
He said the Martinique subdivision is not as upscale as the nearby Finisterre subdivision that is also in the coastal flood map, and many people in his subdivision are middle class, making the cost of private flood insurance a real financial hardship.
“They are all working people, all my neighbors,” Albano said. “I have a neighbor who is a college professor but he and his wife are struggling. They tried to sell their house. They can’t.”
Only a small portion of his home — his garage — is low enough to be considered in a federal flood zone, he said. But even if a sliver of the home is in the flood zone banks require flood insurance, he said.
In April, County Attorney Terrell Arline traveled to Washington to make his case and to show his support for a bill filed by Rep. Steve Southerland, R-Panama City, that would have removed the communities from the map.
The legislation has not passed, and Arline told county commissioners on Tuesday that the resolution might help it pass this coming year.
Being in the flood map is also hurting some residents’ ability to get home loans, County Commissioner Mike Thomas said at Tuesday’s meeting.
“They couldn’t get financing when they tried to sell homes,” he said. “They couldn’t get insurance. It was a bad situation and it is a bad situation for a lot of folks.”
In a letter Arline wrote to the U.S. House Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans and Insular Affairs, he said the subdivisions in 1990 were mistakenly included in the map containing St. Andrews State Park.
“The area has never flooded, and the risk to taxpayers is low,” he wrote in the letter. “The homeowners there are unnecessarily suffering serious financial hardships from an inability to obtain federal flood insurance.”
When the subdivisions were originally approved, they were not included in Federal Emergency Management Agency flood zones.
However, in 2003 FEMA redid the flood maps and many of the lots were included in a flood zone, Arline said.
“At that point, banks started demanding flood insurance. Because the area was in an Otherwise Protected Area, owners of homes and vacant lots that previously did not need flood insurance were compelled to get it. Because of the mistake in the OPA map, federal flood insurance was not available to these property owners. Private insurance can cost upward to $50,000.”
He said this makes financing new construction and refinancing existing development “extremely difficult and expensive, which adversely affects not only people’s lives but the local real estate market and local tax base.”
Martinque Phil Gilcreast said he is one of the fortunate residents in the subdivision whose home is at a high enough elevation that he is not required to carry flood insurance as part of his mortgage.
“But we’re accepting risk of not purchasing flood insurance because we can’t afford it,” he said.
Mary Hudak, a spokeswoman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said only Congress can remove the subdivisions that were included in the map as part of the Coastal Resource Barrier Act designation.
“FEMA takes the Coastal Barrier Resource Act information given to us by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and puts it on flood insurance rate maps,” she said. “But we don’t have the authority to modify or remove properties from that area.”