The new maps would redraw the floodplain to include 28,000 additional residential, commercial and public buildings that the Federal Emergency Management Agency says it now considers to be at risk from flooding due to storm surge or heavy rains.
In Nassau, the new maps would have the biggest impact on barrier beach communities such as Long Beach, Atlantic Beach and Point Lookout, and southern parts of the Town of Hempstead, including sections of Hewlett and nearby Woodsburgh and Baldwin. On the North Shore, buildings in the new floodplain include some in the Port Washington-Sands Point area.
County Emergency Management Commissioner James Callahan said most changes involve structures near the old floodplain boundaries previously classified as having a less than 1 percent chance of annual flooding.
Updated maps for Suffolk County are scheduled to be released in the fall, said Michael Dabney, director of FEMA's Mitigation Division for the region.
In Nassau, Long Beach City Manager Charles Theofan said the new floodplain encompasses virtually all of Long Beach. The maps added another 3,000 structures -- about one-third of the city's buildings -- a development he termed "unfortunate" for homeowners already grappling with high gas and food prices.
Homeowners in a floodplain cannot get a mortgage without flood insurance, which is underwritten by the federal government and available at set rates from any insurance broker. But building owners affected by the changes who buy insurance before the maps go into effect in July 2009 will be able to lock in the lower rates they now qualify for under the old map, officials said.
FEMA and state environmental officials said the updated maps will help local emergency officials better plan for evacuations and determine whether critical facilities, such as hospitals, lie in the expanded floodplain. "It really is giving us all better information as to who would be impacted should we have a major storm event," said Kenneth Markussen, director of the New York State Department of Environmental Protection's bureau of flood protection and dam safety.