County of Hawaii - Flood Awareness

The state of Hawai‘i, Department of Land and Natural Resources and FEMA RIX will co-sponsor a free course on Elevation Certificates (ECs) at the Community Meeting Hale, West Hawai‘i Civic Center on February, 29 from 8:00 a.m. to noon.

Conducted by Sarah Owen with FEMA RIX, the course will include various uses of the EC by lenders, insurance brokers, land surveyors, architects, and engineers, federal, state, and county government.  The interactive course will also involve participants in discussions, completing the form correctly, and covering the ten building diagrams for base flood and floor elevations.  The most common error received by Hawai‘i County Floodplain Manager are wrong base flood elevations.

EC is a requirement of Chapter 27, pertaining to the Floodplain Management in the Hawai‘i County Code for building, electrical, plumbing and sign permit applications for Special Flood Hazard Areas.

Click here to reserve a seat  http://2012ecworkshop-kona.eventbrite.com/

Please call (808) 961-8321 for information, special accommodations, auxiliary aid and/or services to participate in this meeting (i.e. sign language interpreter, large print).

FEMA issued new preliminary Digital Flood Insurance Rate Maps (DFIRMs) and a revised Flood Insurance Study (FIS) for Hawai‘i County.  FEMA provides a 90 day appeal period, which ends on January 12, 2012, when new or revised flood elevations called Based Flood Elevations (BFEs) are proposed.  If your property was incorrectly placed in a flood zone, the appeal period is your opportunity to submit to the Department of Public Works data or documentation indicating the BFEs are scientifically or technically incorrect. When FEMA receives an appeal, it suspends further processing of the DFIRM and FIS until the appeal is resolved.  Refer to the Flood Hazard Assessment Toolkit http://gis.hawaiinfip.org/fhat/ and FEMA’s website: https://www.floodmaps.fema.gov/fhm/Scripts/bfe_main.asp.





Update on Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 4:10PM by admin

The department of Public Works filed 29 appeals to FEMA on the preliminary digital flood insurance rate map (DFIRM) and the revised Flood Insurance Study (FIS) issued to Hawaii County on July 27, 2011 .  Today ended the 90-day appeal process that began last November.

FEMA has thirty days to address all appeals and comments.

Update on Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 3:09PM by admin

On January 30, 2012, FEMA responded to the County’s protest/appeal and  agreed to allow the County more time to improve the Preliminary Digital Flood Insurance Rate Maps.  FEMA & DPW will meet March 9.