Another set of flood maps could be available for Warren County by 2012 as part of renewed statewide re-mapping, officials said Monday.

Officials with the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality plan to visit counties every six years after a new, digital map is accepted to make “maintenance updates” to improve identification of places deemed on most recent maps as places that would be inundated by a flood having a 1 percent chance of happening in any given year. A property’s inclusion in such a zone, called a Special Flood Hazard Area, generally requires homeowners with federally backed home loans to purchase flood insurance.

A public hearing will be held at the conclusion of a 24- to 36-month “scoping process,” said Steve Champlin, director of the geospatial resources division at MDEQ.

Flood-risk maps formerly available only on paper have been digitized nationwide by the Federal Emergency Management Agency as part of a process started in 2003. A dozen counties in Mississippi have effective maps as part of the effort, dubbed the Mississippi Flood Map Modernization Initiative. Warren County approved its current map in 2008, the first such revision since the 1980s. Like other counties, the map is represented as individual sections of land, or “panels,” available for public view at the Emergency Management Agency at the courthouse.

Starting this year, the multiagency drive will send representatives to counties within six years after a map is approved so more detailed studies are done, Champlin said, adding the focus will not be on the entire county.

“It will only be on specific panels,” Champlin said.

Cities and counties will be asked during the updating period to point out areas of particular concern, Champlin said. Initial details of the update for Warren County were shared Monday during private talks with supervisors Richard George and David McDonald, Vicksburg Mayor Paul Winfield, Warren County Emergency Management Director Gwen Coleman and city buildings inspector Victor Gray-Lewis.

Digitally enhanced maps were necessary to re-map flood risks nationwide, particularly in sparsely populated areas such as nonmunicipal Warren County, FEMA officials have said. A side effect of technical improvements has involved properties bordering SFHAs that had previously avoided official designation, thus requiring homeowners to purchase flood insurance who had not been compelled by their mortgage lender to do so.

Property owners can request their homes or businesses be removed from the designation by applying for a Letter of Map Amendment, or LOMA. In those cases, individual homeowners must pay a surveyor to determine a property’s Base Flood Elevation, the computed elevation to which floodwater is expected to rise.

Three have been approved in Warren County since the current map became effective. Fourteen were completed between 2000 and 2008.

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Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com