The flood mitigation assistance grant is a nationally competitive FEMA grant that
provides opportunities for structures that have experienced multiple flood losses to have some
kind of mitigation. The grant is funded through the national flood insurance fund so any homeowner or
business owner that has a flood insurance policy pays a small amount of their premium
into that fund and then a grant opportunity is made available every year
for those with flood insurance policies that have experienced multiple flood losses.
The goal of the grant is to reduce the amount of flood losses thereby reducing the amount
of flood insurance claims. So the grant provides different ways to mitigate structures depending
on what works best for that homeowner or business owner. The grant pays for buyouts, it pays for
elevations, demo rebuilds, which is demolishing the structure and rebuilding it to current standards.
It also pays for relocation or flood proofing of non-residential or historic structures.
The grant may also pay for community mitigation projects so those can be larger flood projects
that would help reduce flooding perhaps for multiple homeowners or in a neighborhood.
The buyouts are the most foolproof way to prevent flooding of structures. A home that
is bought out through the FMA program is purchased by the local community
then the home is demolished and then that space can never be built on again so that would be
green space in perpetuity. This is beneficial for the homeowner because the homeowner gets
full market value for their structure and it's beneficial for the community because they now
no longer have to allocate resources to this area that had experienced flooding in the past.
The grant process has been a long process but we knew that going in and we were upfront with the
homeowners ahead of time. They were very patient and we are very appreciative towards that fact.
The flooding has totally changed my entire life, everything not for the bad.
I've been here since Hugo, in this house and never flooded until 2015
where it just broke loose and it was totally unexpected and then 2016 and then 2017.
Elevations of homes are also another common form of mitigation that's funded through the
FMA grant, while not 100% risk-free it does provide a safer place for
homeowners to live. Elevating a home is probably the most important consideration
when one decides to build in the flood hazard area or continue to live in the flood hazard area.
Well flooding affects the town of Hilton Head Island because our economy is mostly run by
tourism, so anytime we have a flooding event it does strain our local businesses it strains our
governmental resources and really slows things down but we do everything that we can to get back
up and running once a flooding event has occurred.
The grant process was pretty smooth for the town of Hilton Head island and the property owner that was elevating their structure through the FMA program.
Once we were notified that the application was selected for funding, then town staff created a
grant agreement between the town and the property owners that mirrored this grant agreement the
town had with FEMA and so once that was complete and the project was finished town staff and the
property owner worked to document all the expenses and submitted the reimbursement request to FEMA.
So you can see that it took a lot of communication and coordination between
the town and the property owner that would enable them to elevate their home to help with their flooding issues.
Flooding has impacted our life greatly. We had after Matthew
which was devastating for so many people in the neighborhood, our island that we live on
and then we got back into the house after rebuilding and all of these things and then
Irma came and bam we were right back to where we were and you know after that we had
a different mindset. You know going forward from there and it was fear driven at its core.
Whenever it rains, is it going to rain buckets? Is it going to stop?
Is it going to come in the front door? Always worried.
I always tell people if you're building in a flood zone it does not cost that much more to elevate.
Flood insurance rates decrease for every foot above the base flood elevation structures constructed. It costs a lot less
during the pre-construction process than it does after it is constructed to elevate.
Also if you're building in a flood zone get a flood insurance policy because that is the
fastest way to get your life back to normal if something were to happen. If an event were to
occur, report the damages to the county because we keep up with with damages and document that
and we can try to get you as much help as possible but we can't help you if we don't know.
I feel now that our flood risk has been reduced is a great weights been lifted
and that underlying stress level that has been there, you can kind of feel it washing away.