FEMA and the Corps Have Taken Steps to Establish a Task Force, but FEMA Has Not Assessed the Costs of Collecting and Reporting All Levee-Related Concerns

Recent catastrophic flooding in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee caused levee breaches and forced mandatory evacuations; while record flooding along the Mississippi and lower Ohio River valleys prompted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) to rupture the Bird's Point-New Madrid Levee, resulting in the flooding of more than 130,000 acres of Missouri farmland. The destruction is estimated to have caused hundreds of millions in property damages. These events underscore the importance of the nation's levee system and the role federal agencies play in assessing levee integrity and assisting communities in the aftermath of levee failure. Levees are found in approximately 22 percent of U.S. counties, where almost half of the U.S. population resides and are, for the most part, owned and maintained by the locality in which they are located. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), a component of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is responsible for mapping flood-prone areas across the country and issuing levee accreditations for the purposes of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). Under the NFIP regulations, FEMA requires that levee owners or community officials seeking to demonstrate the flood protection provided by a levee submit an engineering certification indicating that the levee complies with certain criteria. Flood insurance purchase is mandatory for all federally backed mortgages for properties FEMA designates as being located in a special flood hazard area, which are those areas that have an estimated 1 percent annual chance of flooding. If a levee receives accreditation from FEMA, homeowners who reside in the area protected by the levee are not subjected to the federal requirement to purchase flood insurance, but still retain the option to purchase flood insurance. Based upon the estimated flood risk reflected in FEMA's maps, FEMA makes flood insurance available to property owners in the 21,361 communities that participate in the NFIP. The Corps is responsible for much of the federal construction of flood control and storm protection infrastructure. As the result of its Map Modernization effort that began in fiscal year 2003, FEMA began an intensive remapping effort of its map inventory, including areas that contain levees. This remapping effort required communities and levee owners to validate that they met FEMA's accreditation requirements. While these requirements have been in place since 1968, levee owners have expressed difficulty in obtaining and paying for accreditation or re-accreditation and communities have communicated concerns to FEMA about the levee accreditation process. Language in the Senate committee report accompanying the the Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2010 directed FEMA to establish an interagency task force with the Corps and OMB, to track, address and, where possible, resolve concerns stemming from FEMA mapping efforts in communities with issues related to flood control infrastructure, including levees. In its quarterly reports to Congress, FEMA has not included all the information the Senate committee report directed it to, such as a comprehensive list of all concerns that communities raised to FEMA. As result, we were unable to assess the number and status of responses to issues communities submitted to the task force. In response, we reviewed (1) the progress FEMA has made in creating an interagency task force to track, address, and resolve concerns stemming from FEMA mapping efforts in communities with issues related to flood control infrastructures; and (2) the extent to which FEMA has the capabilities to collect and report information on community mapping concerns related to flood control infrastructures as directed.