![]() ![]() The contractor’s report contradicted the Army Corps’ results, and, as Meece told local newspapers, the remapping - a $270,000 effort - ultimately left the city with a floodplain 95% smaller than what appeared on the original map. ![]() The city hired a private contractor to do an independent analysis and draw a new map. senators at the time - both Democrats - wrote to FEMA, urging the agency to “right this wrong” and expedite the mapping process. Muddy water begins to trickle over the makeshift levee built to protect Livingston from catastrophic flooding. “The Corps study was grossly inaccurate and flawed.” Meece didn’t respond to multiple requests for an interview for this story. “The city commissioners were very concerned,” former Livingston City Manager Ed Meece told The Billings Gazette at the time. Army Corps - a lengthy and expensive process - the map makers acted as if it didn’t exist at all. However, since the levee wasn’t officially certified by the U.S. According to city commission minutes, local newspapers and official documents, locals and city officials were incensed and started to push back immediately.Ī makeshift levee, first built in the 1930s and bolstered over the years, ran through town along the Yellowstone River to protect property from floodwater. Army Corps of Engineers to the city of Livingston, it showed that hundreds of homes were at high risk of flooding, potentially adding a hefty price tag for anyone thinking of buying a home or developing there. When the agency presented a study by the U.S. They also delineate the “regulatory floodway,” areas at even higher risk of water rushing through, where development is in many cases prohibited. Those maps detail risk - where homes and property across the country fall within the “100-year floodplain,” for example, where there are usually special requirements for development, and owners must purchase flood insurance. ![]() IN THE EARLY 2000s, the Federal Emergency Management Agency began revamping its flood maps. Real risk, I learned, doesn’t always follow the lines on a map. The city’s official map - a hodgepodge of smudges, lines and blots - is like a Rorschach test: It may convey very different meanings to homeowners, developers, politicians and scientists, and this can have lasting consequences for how communities cope with floods. For most people, floodplain maps are difficult to find and even tougher to understand. Waiting out the flood at a friend’s place on higher ground, uncertain about the fate of my own home, the map lines that inform how officials think about flood risk abruptly became tangible to me. The high, muddy water caused millions of dollars of damage in the region. Hundreds of structures in town were evacuated, including my house, which is located in a so-called “500-year floodplain” - a zone with a. People moved valuables into their cars, ready to hit the road. As the Yellowstone River rose in June, sandbag walls sprouted like Lego sets, buffering properties around the city of Livingston, Montana, population about 8,000. ![]()
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