By David Harry
Staff Writer

Brad Thompson said his home at the corner of Ocean Avenue and Bayview Street in Higgins Beach was built in 1907.
He has pictures of his home burning in 1941, but no recollection or knowledge of it getting flooded by the Atlantic Ocean, which is across the street and beach.
However, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is uncertain the home can withstand the sea, and has placed it and other homes in Higgins Beach in revised flood zones.
The new designations come as a result of an agency program to update maps throughout the country, according to David Mendelsohn, who coordinated the map monitorization program for the FEMA Region 1 office in Boston.
The new maps, which could take effect next June, will require homeowners now in flood or wave velocity zones to get flood insurance and will limit renovation and expansion plans they may have.
In South Portland, Scarborough and Cape Elizabeth, code enforcement officers and town planners are urging homeowners to visit them to see the revised maps and to learn whether and how specific changes may affect them.
Mendelsohn said the last regional flood maps were created about 26 years ago and FEMA has spent the last six years creating revisions throughout the country. The new maps have expanded areas where the agency has determined there is a 1 percent annual chance of flooding.
Mendelsohn said enhanced imaging allows the maps to show land contours at intervals of two feet instead of 10. The change has led to an increase in areas the agency lists as having a 1 percent chance of annual flooding.
Stephen Puleo, a community planner in South Portland, said a significant change in the mapping is the creation of velocity zones where damage may occur from waves more than three feet high.
The combination of expanded flood zones and potential wave damage areas can be contested by towns and residents, and efforts to have the agency reconsider the maps using new or more detailed information are already underway in Portland, said Bob Gerber, a vice president of Sebago Technics.
Gerber said he is also assisting South Portland and Cape Elizabeth officials who are compiling lists of affected homeowners who can be notified they are now living in flood and wave velocity zones.
It is not so much the new flood zone elevations and the wave velocity zones Gerber said are flawed.
He is contesting the maps for Portland officials because the findings could prohibit all development in the waterfront area on the assumption that storm waves could flow into the harbor unimpeded by outlying islands and other obstructions.
Gerber said he is creating new wave models to submit to the agency that are more intricate than ones FEMA officials created.
Puleo said the designation appeared to have a greater residential than commercial effect in South Portland.
Bruce Smith, the Cape Elizabeth Code Enforcement Officer, said he has determined about a dozen zones along the shoreline that do not appear to be accurate.
The affected areas were already in a velocity zone, Smith said, and he disagrees with the increased elevation of the zones.
“I don’t think they did enough research,” Smith said.
Smith and homeowners, including Thompson, said the agency has not considered the history of the areas affected by new maps, either.
Thompson stood on the porch outside his home to point to a spot where debris from the Patriot’s Day storm in 2007 left debris, but noted the seawall and Bayview Street have been rebuilt since the storm.
Smith said he knew of only two homes in Cape Elizabeth to have suffered flood damage more than once.
Buying flood insurance now will be less expensive than when the maps take effect, Mendelsohn said, and insurance premiums cannot be raised once a home is placed in the new zones.
When a home is sold, the premiums cannot be raised to flood zone rates, Mendolsohn said.
Renovating or expanding a home will become more difficult, Smith said. The new zones automatically place affected homes into shoreline zoning areas governed by laws conforming with state, as opposed to local ,regulations.
One rule requires remodeling that would increase a home’s value by more than 50 percent to raise the new construction two feet above the flood line and prohibit hooking up utilities on the bottom floor.
“You could end up losing your basement for any practical purposes,” Smith said.
Scarborough Code Enforcement Officer David Grysk has spent several weeks merging FEMA data with existing zoning maps and can provide homeowners a detailed overlay of how properties can be affected.
Grysk said the major changes affect residential more than commercial areas and affect coastal more than inland areas.
Those who feel the new maps are inaccurate can appeal and should weigh the cost of surveying fees against flood insurance premiums, he said.
Further down Bayview Avenue, retired attorney Jack Ridge said he considered buying flood insurance when he bought his home in 1983.
He did not consider it necessary then and after living on Higgins Beach full time since 1985, he said he still has his doubts because storm surges have never crossed Bayview Avenue to his property.
The potential restrictions on rebuilding or expanding homes did not surprise him, he said.
“As if it wasn’t already tough enough to remodel on Higgins Beach,” he said.

Staff writer David Harry can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 219