Revisions in the works since October to Warren County’s flood maps by state agencies could be revised again by supervisors by a state-set March 5 deadline, citing a need to tone down mandates for raising structures in the most flood-prone areas and general flood risk areas countywide.

A draft summary of a flood damage prevention ordinance by the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency would order new construction at least 18 inches above 100-year flood elevations. Such areas appear on federal flood maps as places that would be inundated by a flood having a 1 percent chance of happening in any given year. Property owners in those areas are generally required by lenders to purchase flood insurance, the eligibility for which could be jeopardized if counties don’t enforce with federal guidelines.

Existing structures would be grandfathered in and wouldn’t be affected. Other details supervisors have deemed onerous involve having all RVs moved out of special flood zones within seven days of official flood warnings and a reference to Warren County, as a whole, as being “subject to periodic inundations.”

“That’s not true,” said board attorney Randy Sherard, who reviewed a copy of the draft provided by Emergency Management Director Gwen Coleman and was directed to bring up the county’s issues with the report to MEMA. “Parts of Warren County are, but not Warren County.”

Enforcement for the purpose of securing building permits likely would fall to Coleman’s office, but supervisors maintained a typically hands-off stance of heavy code-like enforcement of nonmunicipal structures — many of which are concentrated along Mississippi 465 and parts north.

“They’re not going to entertain individual descriptions,” said District 5 Supervisor Richard George, board president. “They don’t enforce it as it is — they can’t afford to.” 

In October, MEMA and the state Department of Environmental Quality told Vicksburg and Warren County officials the area included a statewide remapping of flood risks across Mississippi. Flood maps inside and outside the city were redone in 2008 after a five-year initiative by FEMA. More property owners living near special flood zones but not necessarily inside the zone on the old maps have been lumped into the “hazard” designation by the digitization of official maps, which has prompted the two agencies to identify flood-prone territory within individual counties more closely.

Each county map is represented as individual sections of land, or “panels,” available for public view in Warren County at the Emergency Management Agency at the courthouse. MEMA and MDEQ’s remap effort will focus on specific panels, both agencies have said.

State officials have indicated no changes can be made to the prevention ordinance, Coleman said. However, she added, “discrepancies” may be pointed out in advance of the deadline to highlight topics left unaddressed.

“If there’s major issues, they’re going to have to address it with everybody,” Coleman said.

Though the process does involve a new ordinance, supervisors said Monday they will forgo a public hearing on the issue, citing their inability to change the designation of any single property. Public comments will be taken as part of the overall remapping effort, MDEQ officials have said, expected to be sometime before 2012.

Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com