Life Preserver: Fear and Loathing in Collinsville

The name is bland - the St. Louis Metro East Levee Issues Alliance - but the emotions that are uniting black with white, people who live below the bluff with people who live atop it, are anything but.

Beneath the measured tones of development officials and small city mayors gathered in the Metro East Park & Recreation District offices on September 8 there pulsed real emotion. Fear that FEMA - the Federal Emergency Management Agency - would devastate the economy of southwestern Illinois; loathing of an agency that to area residents and business owners seems unpredictable, unaccountable, and uncaring; and anger that the welfare of people living in middle America would be sacrificed for beach houses on the nation's coasts.

Three years ago, FEMA announced that the five Mississippi River levees that protect 150,000 residents and 4,000 businesses in the American Bottoms area of the metro east from river floods did not meet new flood protection standards. Hence, the areas behind the levees would be designated Special Flood Hazard Areas where residents and businesses would be required to buy flood insurance and would be subject to new building restrictions.

The citizens in the affected counties quickly put in motion a plan to upgrade the levees to avoid the Special Flood Hazard Area designation. Their fear is that FEMA will impose the designation before the levee upgrades are done. Patrick McKeehan, executive director of the Leadership Council Southwestern Illinois, cited three separate times when FEMA has threatened to do just that.

The East-West Gateway Council of Governments estimated that the additional insurance mandated by FEMA imposing a Special Flood Hazard area designation on the American Bottoms would cost area residents and businesses $50 million a year. McKeehan, however, said indirect costs and the uncertainty over whether FEMA will mandate insurance is threatening prospects for new development and could have "a brutal economic impact" on the area.

"We need time to finish the levees so that we can get the word out that we are open for business," he said.

In a series of meetings at town halls and churches, and with business associations and labor unions, 9,000 people signed petitions urging the U.S. Senate and the administration to give the area time.

East St. Louis Mayor Alvin Parks said homeowners in his low-income community will be forced to choose food and flood insurance or medicine and flood insurance if FEMA places the area under the new flood designation.

"We have citizens living on $500 - $600 a month. You have to think of the human factor. They will be putting flood insurance on people who absolutely cannot afford it," he said.

FEMA has downplayed the cost of mandated flood insurance, but the East-West Gateway Council of Governments estimated that it would cost the average homeowner in the American Bottoms $493 a year, or almost a month's income for some of Parks' constituents.

"We fear the impact of mandated flood insurance could result in more residents falling further behind on house payments and potentially facing foreclosure," said McKeehan.

Columbia, Illinois, Mayor Kevin Huchinson, an insurance broker, called the potential Special Flood Hazard designation by FEMA "a money grab." Noting that FEMA owns the National Flood Insurance Program that sells mandated flood insurance, he said the proposal to require that people in the American Bottoms buy flood insurance was to make up for FEMA's insurance losses from hurricane-induced floods along the nation's coasts.

"While we disagree with the legitimacy of FEMA's process, local leaders have stepped up and are doing everything they can to improve the levees so they continue to protect lives and property, all with little or no assistance from federal agencies," McKeehan said.

Les Sterman, chief engineer, Southwestern Illinois Flood Prevention District Council, what those steps have been. He noted that the levees have not failed since they were build 60 years ago. Nevertheless, in the face of FEMA's threat, citizens in Madison, Monroe, and St. Clair counties approved a sales tax to fund levee improvements. Since the tax took affect, the flood prevention district council has hired a team of engineers to inspect the levees and design the needed improvements. The engineering team, which is led by AMEC, includes URS; Volkert and Associates; ABNA; Sheppard, Morgan & Schwaab; Inquip; Arturo Ressi di Cervia; Juneau Associates; SCI; Hoelscher; Harris Drilling Services; Stratigraphics; Boart Longyear; Terra Drilling; Roberts Drilling; Layne Western Drilling; Contract Dewatering Services; and Layne Christensen Co.

He said the flood prevention district council hopes to sell bonds by November to finance the construction of levee improvements.

"This is the most important issue we face as a region," said Madison County Board Chairman Alan Dunstan. "All we need from the Feds is time," he said.

The Levee Issues Alliance wants the U.S. Senate to take up and pass House Resolution 5114, which was passed by the House and contains by U.S. Rep. Jerry Costello that would prevent FEMA mandates for flood insurance purchases from taking effect for five years.

Sterman said that would give the flood prevention district enough time to construct all the levee improvements needed to avoid FEMA's special flood hazard designation.

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