Letter to the editor: Flood insurance warning

Beware if you are buying and mortgaging a home in a flood-prone area as determined by FEMA. You must have flood insurance to cover the amount of your loan. I found FEMA-issued maps that state my house is in a flood Zone X, not requiring insurance. But my bank insists that I have the insurance, and they advised me to request a LOMR (letter of map revision) from FEMA. There has been no remediation on my property in the 60 years I’ve lived here. It has been a fight since May to have the letter issued.

I learned that the maps drawn by FEMA were done without a base elevation floodplain, meaning they arbitrarily chose the zones. I have tried to satisfy my bank by requesting help from FEMA, PEMA, Rep. Frank Dermody’s office, the Harmar Township engineer and floodplain manager, township manager, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Pennsylvania flood insurance manager.

The end result is that I would have to hire an engineer for a fee of about $5,000 to have the base elevation floodplain determined, a job that FEMA should have done in the first place; or I could pay unknown dollars to the Army Corps of Engineers for a search, the price for “Freedom of Information.”

As a senior citizen on a very limited income, I can afford neither. So for now, I must give up the fight and let the bank force-place flood insurance on my loan. So let the home buyer beware.

Margaret M. Cook

Harmar