City fighting floodplain battle from multiple directions

Property owners hit with rising cost to insurance, despite little risks of flooding

The latest strategy to help properties stuck in the floodplain in La Crosse could reap benefits beyond what home owners might expect.

Next month, the city council votes on an approach towards floodplain mitigation.

The plan includes loans, grants and special techniques to do small-scale changes to homes and businesses to get them out of the floodplain, and out of the trap of paying money for federal flood insurance.

According to special federal maps, about 2,000 properties are currently listed in the city’s floodplain and exposed to rapidly increasing costs of flood insurance even though the city historically has shown little chance of the floods that the insurance is supposed to protect against.  

“Right now, between $500,000 and $1 million, leaves the city annually to the NFIP in flood-insurance premiums,” La Crosse floodplain manager Doug Kerns said. “The idea is, specifically, to do some kind of a project to a home to mitigate the risk. 

“When you mitigate that risk of flood loss, it’s going to lower the insurance premium and, in most cases, eliminate the need for insurance.”

Kerns is convinced doing the numerous options will help get homes out of the floodplain and out from the insurance costs. 

“We’ll see, in the next 5-10 years, having quite the impact on the overall value of the homes in these areas,” Kerns said. “Certain portions of this city, those areas need to be looked at structure by structure.

“In a lot of cases, the benefit cost analysis shows that, instead of doing a massive project that would cost $50-70 million, it’s more cost effective to look at it house by house.”