FEMA Flood Insurance Rate Maps

Planning on buying a home? Building an addition or shed? Concerned about seasonal flooding in your community? The Department of Planning distributes FEMA Flood Insurance Maps (FIRM) free to interested agencies and citizens. These maps are also available from the Federal Emergency Management Agency directly at their website http://www.fema.gov. These maps show each Town and Village within Genesee County and what areas are susceptible to flooding. Contact our office by phone or come and visit us to learn more about the FIRM and how flooding affects you property and your community.

The FIRM is the basis for floodplain management, mitigation, and insurance activities for the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). Insurance applications include enforcement of the mandatory purchase requirement of the Flood Disaster Protection Act, which "requires the purchase of flood insurance by property owners who are being assisted by Federal programs or by Federally supervised, regulated, or insured agencies or institutions in the acquisition or improvement of land facilities located or to be located in identified areas having special flood hazards" (Section 2 (b) (4) of the 1973 Flood Disaster Protection Act). In addition to the identification of Special Flood Hazard Areas (SFHAs), the risk zones shown on the FIRMs are the basis for the establishment of premium rates for flood insurance coverage offered through the NFIP. The Q3 Flood Data are derived from the FIRMs and published by FEMA. Q3 Flood Data files convey certain key features from the existing hard copy FIRM. Edge-matching errors, overlaps and deficiencies in coverage, and similar problems are not corrected during digitizing or post-processing. The Q3 Flood Data files are intended to provide users with automated flood risk data that may be used to locate SFHAs. More detailed information may be obtained from the paper FIRM.

The Q3 Flood Data can be interactively viewed on the County's Web Mapping Application.