Newsmakers, September 13, 2018

Mayors of Mississippi River communities are working together to minimize the impact of flooding and change the nation’s flood insurance program that has been decimated by increasingly severe weather.

The Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative (MRCTI) is a group of 85 mayors from river communities in 10 states from the Mississippi River headwaters to the Gulf of Mexico.

MRCTI Executive Director Colin Wellenkamp said the National Flood Insurance Program is oversubscribed, and that there’s not enough money to cover losses from catastrophic weather disasters.

“We really have got to become innovative and shift more funding into the mitigation side of things so that we’re not stuck with these multi-billion dollar disaster flooding events, rain events and droughts,” he said.

The city of La Crosse has been studying ways to remove local homeowners from the floodplain. According to the city’s website, that may entail engineering, design, earthwork, structure relocation, foundation improvements, or other construction requirements necessary to elevate homes above the flood protection elevation.

Currently, about 1,900 La Crosse homeowners pay for flood insurance each year.

“Especially with some of the latest storm events, we saw on the ground what happens when you get a 25-year or 50-year storm event and where the water actually flows,” said La Crosse Mayor Tim Kabat. “It didn’t necessarily match the floodplain maps, so we’re going back and re-evaluating those floodplain maps to better match what actually happens when you have a storm.”

The city is working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to adjust their floodplain maps.

Kabat said the city hopes to remove at least 200 homes from the floodplain.

That would mean those homeowners wouldn’t have to take out flood insurance annually, it would be voluntary. La Crosse also recently started a program to help provide money to homeowners to flood proof their homes.

Kabat said right now, La Crosse homeowners pay $800,000 each year into the National Flood Insurance Program. He said because the national program is not solvent due to the increased number of extreme storms in recent years, cities along the Mississippi River are considering different options for flood insurance.

“We have national interest in that, all of the communities up and down the (Mississippi) River. Especially insurance companies are looking at how to minimize their risks, especially the pay-outs on some of these large storms. They’re looking to partner with cities to be creative,” Kabat said.

Since mayors in the MRCTI started meeting six years ago, there has also been a shift in how river communities deal with flooding.

They used to take measures like sandbagging that would protect individual communities but ultimately make flooding worse for those living down river.

La Crosse has an 1,100-acre marsh in the middle of the city that serves as a buffer when the Mississippi River floods. Kabat said the city is trying to maximize the flood relief the marsh can provide.

“Those are the kinds of initiatives that all of the communities up and down the river are looking at. It’s not just our levees or our flood walls, but are there floodplains, parks or open space that if it would have to take on some water, it would be ok to do that,” he said.

Wellenkamp said the MRCTI is working with federal officials to shift the financial investment from helping people after a flood, to flood prevention where communities living along the Mississippi River aren’t so affected by flooding.

“Restore natural infrastructure that used to exist that would normally have absorbed a lot of these impacts like marshes, wetlands and forests,” Wellenkamp said. “Natural points that are key to reducing pressure and flood risk.”

Kabat said flood and water quality will likely be at topic for mayors at the annual MRCTI meeting next week in Davenport, Iowa.

– John Davis