Virginia Beach ranks top for cities at serious risk of flooding in Virginia
Steve Helber/AP
By: Web Staff
and last updated 2021-04-17 20:01:06-04
HAMPTON ROADS, Va. - Several cities in the Hampton Roads area are at risk of serious flooding based on a 2020 national flood risk assessment.
The First National Flood Risk Assessment in 2020 found that 344,000 Virginia properties are at risk for flooding, and they expect it to increase to nearly 390,000 by 2050. JES Work reports that this means more than 15% of properties in Virginia are at risk of flooding over the next 30 years.
The study includes areas that the current FEMA flood insurance rate maps havenât yet mapped.
The report builds upon the First National Flood Flood Risk Assessment released in June 2020, deriving average annual loss (AAL) statistics for each residential property in the contiguous United States.
The report provides a new context for researchers and home owners alike to understand the nature and extent of flood risk by presenting it in concrete dollar terms, and demonstrating how it will change as the climate changes over the life of a 30 year mortgage. It’s findings have implications for the study of flood risk, home mortgage, insurance and reinsurance markets, and current and future homeowners.
The Foundation’s peer reviewed, climate adjusted, property-specific flood model was applied to depth damage functions from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and home value data from ComeHome by HouseCanary and Lightbox in order to estimate the financial cost of flood risk.