The Daviess County Emergency Management Agency is currently working to improve its flood insurance community ratings system in order to decrease flood insurance premiums for Owensboro residents.
City commissioners supported the first step toward improvement on Tuesday by approving DCEMA’s program for public information through the National Flood Insurance Program.
According to DCEMA Planner Vicky Connor, the municipal order should give the agency the opportunity to provide better discounts to home and business owners that live or reside in flood plains.
DCEMA’s current rating is an 8 on a 1-10 scale. As Connor noted, lower ratings result in better discounts on flood insurance premiums.
Connor said her hope was to bring the city’s rating down to six, and the county’s rating to seven. Connor said the rating can be lowered by earning “points” through various activities.
The goal to improve scores for Owensboro and Daviess County had taken “hours and hours and hours of work” through a committee specifically appointed through DCEMA.
That committee, formed in December, decided to enter into a public information program to improve the city and county’s rating.
Connor said DCEMA currently provides residents with public information on flood insurance and safety through 14 different programs, including ones about flood preparedness materials, drain marking projects, watershed education and safety fairs.
Commissioner Bob Glenn pointed out that residents who live in the neighborhood behind Texas Gas have been making complaints about having to pay for flood insurance when they didn’t have to previously. Connor said a lot of that confusion stemmed from changing flood maps that put more homes in flood zones in recent years.
Connor said anyone living in a flood zone was required to take out flood insurance unless the home had been completely paid off. She also said DCEMA was working to present new flood maps to the public to make people more aware about the changing flood zones.
“We are really keeping our fingers crossed and hoping we can get it reduced,” Connor said. “We feel that we have worked as hard as we can work to get us to our lowest level.”
