A historic Warren County home damaged in the 2011 Mississippi River Flood has been denied flood insurance benefits and is now at the center of a federal lawsuit.

The Melba and F.G. Parker home at 21533 Mississippi 465, fronting Lake Chotard near the Eagle Lake community, took on about 3 feet of floodwater in May, said their son, Lou Parker, trustee of the Melba W. Parker Revocable Trust.

The suit, which reflects only one side of a legal argument, was filed Jan. 18 in U.S. District Court in Jackson on behalf of the Parker trust against the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Mississippi Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance Company, seeking a minimum of $250,000 in damages plus court costs and legal fees.

It claims that Farm Bureau sold the Parkers the flood insurance policy days before the flood, accepting a $2,000-plus premium payment, and then would not make good on its benefits.

“Farm Bureau and FEMA accepted Parker’s money with no intention of providing coverage for flood damages that may be associated with the rising levels of the Mississippi River as of May 5, 2011,” the suit states, “…levels which FEMA and Farm Bureau were well aware of. This evidences bad faith.”

A regional spokesman for FEMA said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.

Neither Lou Parker nor his attorney, Jerry Campbell of Vicksburg, would comment on the case, citing the litigation in process, but Parker said the home sits on a rise, about 7 feet above Mississippi 465.

According to the document, the policy was in effect when water overran the banks of Lake Chotard and began its climb toward the home.

Lou Parker applied to the Farm Bureau for the flood policy on April 27, the suit states. A bank loan was secured to refinance the house, allowing the insurance to go into effect immediately instead of being subject to the 30-day waiting period normally required by insurers.

The lawsuit states that Parker paid a premium of $2,115 to the Farm Bureau for $250,000 of coverage as a standard flood insurance policy in the National Flood Insurance Program administered by FEMA. Campbell said the policy was written by a Vicksburg Farm Bureau office. An office agent said he could not comment on the policy or the lawsuit, and the Jackson agent named as “agent for service of process” in the suit did not return a call.

Historically, insurance companies, which write policies on behalf of FEMA, would not write a policy if a flood was in progress, an agent not connected with the case said.

“People were asking for policies as the flood approached and we wrote them,” said independent insurance agent Ronnie Andrews, who did not represent the Parkers. “For the property to be insured, we always understood their (FEMA’s) definition of a ‘flood-in-progress’ to be that water was touching the property.”

On May 17, FEMA issued a ruling that Parker’s policy was among those that “did not provide coverage if any claimed losses were directly or indirectly caused by a flood ‘already in progress,’” according to the document.

Subsequently, on July 1, FEMA instructed its agents, including Farm Bureau, to set the “date of loss” for flood policies in Warren County at April 25, the suit claims.

The river reached flood stage in Vicksburg, 43 feet, April 30.

As required by his policy, Parker submitted to Farm Bureau, which was denied, and later appealled to FEMA, which also was denied.

“FEMA’s denial of this claim evidences ‘bad faith’ because FEMA knew or should have known of the Mississippi River levels and flood prognostications (on May 5, the effective date of the policy),” the suit states. “To attempt to exclude coverage because of a ‘flood in progress’ is wrong because the United States government issues daily data on the levels of the Mississippi River.”

The 2011 flood set a new record in Vicksburg and Warren County, cresting May 19 at 57.1 feet, more than 14 feet above flood stage and surpassing the great 1927 flood by more than a foot. It displaced more than 3,200 people in across Warren County and closed rail lines serving the Port of Vicksburg and other businesses and major roads.

Though he and other agents wrote a number of flood insurance policies as the river rose, most of those properties did not end up being flooded, Andrews said.

Melba Parker, a longtime school teacher and community leader at Eagle Lake, died July 16 at the age of 90, in Cleveland.

She had lived in the Mississippi 465 home since Jan. 1, 1950, when she and her husband, F.G. Parker, moved there. Their house was built in 1816.