The process of remapping Pueblo County floodplains in US may be delayed by a demand from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to recertify levees on the Arkansas River and Fountain Creek. But FEMA officers at the Region 8 office in Denver said the requirement is a purely routine part of updating the maps and should not be taken as a threat. Pueblo County’s planning director, Kim Headley, and the city’s stormwater utility head, Dennis Maroney, have been in the process of digitizing local floodplain maps. As FEMA’s Dan Carlson explained it, that is a matter of moving the old paper maps into the computer age so that they can be integrated into the GIS for the county.
The floodplain maps are useful for dealing with a flood or other emergency, and they also have an impact on property insurance. Any federally insured loan on property within a floodplain requires flood insurance.
