Posted on 06/27/2013 4:18:58 AM PDT by blueyon
Edited on 06/27/2013 4:29:52 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Tornado victims unable to get permits to rebuild their homes
Posted on: 10:59 pm, June 26, 2013, by Adam Mertz
OKLAHOMA CITY- Some tornado victims, who lost their homes, fear that they may not be able to re-build. Rhonda Northcutt said she is unable to get a building permit from the city because of where her home was located before it was destroyed.
“It is just unimaginable that I have to go to bed at night thinking that I even have to deal with this,” Northcutt said.
Northcutt and her neighbor Jennifer Wisooker live in a neighborhood near May and SW 149th street. Their homes were destroyed by the May 20th tornado.
According to the city, there are homes in the neighborhood that are located in an area designated as a flood way. The city said it is unable to give permits to build new homes in these types of areas because of FEMA requirements. Even though their homes were there before the storm, Wisooker and Northcutt might not be able to re-build.
We need smaller government.
You might not get as much government “help” following a disaster but you’ll have more money and less interference as a trade off.
What? Didn’t Obama say that Big Government was there to help the tornado victims?
Anyone who believed that hopefully will wake up and smell the coffee when government agencies stand in their way. Just wait till ObamaCare kicks in and you or a loved one finds out that there is a serious health problem and Big Government is in charge.
Basically, you are stuck with RV parking or some single-wide trailer. Although I do agree...when the idiots of the city agreed in the first place to allow real estate development on a flood plain...they opened up the door themselves.
Wasn’t it Greensburg Kansas where the government help came with new green building codes?
You need a naming system for the tornados.
Start with the Obama family, then work your way through the Democratic Party rolls.
Is there an Agenda 21/ICLEI connection to this? Seems to me it follows the spirit of A-21....
All depends on the FEMA map. Many of the flood plain limits are incorrect. When the program was started they were done as a wag and expected to be revised as areas developed,(ie... LEMR or LOMA.)Many rural area’s cannot afford the study to revise the maps, and thus are traps by inacurate boundaries. I am not saying that this is the case here, but the boundaries can be completely inaccurate and may times theres just nothing you can afford to do about it.
FEMA probably designated it a flood plain after the homes were built.
Very possible. Initially we used to generate FEMA maps using Rational Method Hydrology, HEC2 and generated channel definition off of USGS quad maps. Not exactly accurate in any sense. Good for an initial wag and that's about it. Like I said they were initially meant to be revised. Now they tend to be Gospel, since most do not have the money to ammend the maps.
I’m going to blame big government, but for the opposite reason of most of the posts here. I’m sure that FEMA’s assumption is that the place will flood again and that the government will again cover the losses.
Make sure people know about the flood danger, make sure that before they see any FEMA money, they know that if the place floods and they’re wiped out, then they’re wiped out, period, including still having to pay off their mortgage, and then we can talk about using government money — once — to rebuild at that spot.
This is very common. Homes built where they shouldn’t be or that aren’t up to current code are left alone.
But if they are destroyed or severely damaged they must be brought up to current code.
As I recall the maps were “updated” within the last few years. Serveral homeowners near me were surprised to find out that their 20 year old homes are now in a flood plain.
Aren’t we talking about a tornado, not a flood. So what’s the rational for refusing to let them rebuild if wiped out by a tornado? In my county, in CA no less, they must let you rebuild regardless if there is a moritorium on new building or not. Several recent court cases have made that clear.
Flood plain n OKC! hahahaha
designated as a flood way = our geologists say they’re oil under there, so we’ve gotta confiscate your land and turn it into a park to keep that dirty carbon off-limits.
We experienced a lot of this trying to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina. You have a handful of low level bureaucrats that usually sit around approving a few permit applications a day who suddenly are overwhelmed with request and a new found POWER. I had to make MANY 60 mile round trips to the county seat to explain to the idiots their own codes. These people are inept under normal conditions and are downright dangerous under extraordinary conditions. Fighting the storm recovery was easy compared to fighting the government machine.
Coming soon to healthcare.
FEMA had water backing up hill on our river property 40’ over
the 100 year flood stage elevation.
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