Open Graphics: Black Hawk County, Iowa, has passed a new flood plain management ordinance that will  require new and substantially damaged structures in the 100-year flood plain of unincorporated county areas to be elevated three feet above base flood level. This exceeds the old level by two feet. county supervisor John Miller explains...

John Miller, Black Hawk County, Iowa, County Supervisor:
The three above base means that the first floor of the structure must be three feet above not ground level but above the 100 year flood plain. As you can see here there are two different houses one has elevated and one has not. My assumption is though I do know specifically is that the yellow house was not over 50 per cent damaged in the 2008 flood and this one was. This one chose to elevate and this one chose to rebuild as it was before. The reason that we are extremely stringent with the three foot is part of my history as being with the Federal Emergency Management Agency I have been in too many communities and watched too many people pull their memories out of the mud to see their homes destroyed and part of that is because the building that they had the house that they had was in the flood plain and it just makes sense to me as a public official to do good public policy is to restrict as much as we can building in the flood plain.  We understand that it cannot be totally that you cannot restrict it totally, but we want to restrict it as much as we can for the cost that it takes to rebuild not only for the private citizen, but for the cost to infrastructure to the local counties and municipalities, but also the human suffering that comes when the flood waters hit your house and you are three foot inundated in your house.

Closing Graphic:   www.FEMA.gov