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The Federal Emergency Management Agency has released Preliminary Flood Insurance Rate Maps or FIRMs and has conducted an official 90-day Appeal and Protest Period. FEMA has reviewed each of the approximately 250 appeals and protests that were received and has sent out acceptance and denial letters. A Letter of Final Determination was issued on December 18th to each community in Harris County that is affected by TSARP. This letter means that the maps are technically complete and that each community now has 6 months from the date of the letter to adopt the maps and change their ordinances accordingly. Insurance rates and requirements will not change until the maps become effective on June 18th, 2007.
The Revised Preliminary FIRMs contain all of the changes from the appeal and protest period and these maps will not change again prior to becoming the effective FIRMs for Harris County. The maps can be viewed by using the FEMA Preliminary FIRM Lookup tool. Any one of the 143 Revised Preliminary FIRM Panels that cover Harris County can be downloaded from the products page or through the FEMA Preliminary FIRM Lookup tool. The revised preliminary data can also be compared to current floodplains and additional data can be viewed by using the Interactive Mapping Tool. The Interactive Mapping Tool shows the location of Appeals and Protests and provides a link to a document entitled TSARP Appeal and Protest Descriptions that contains a brief description of each Appeal and Protest that FEMA received.
On June 18th 2007 all Elevation Certificates, based on the current FIRMs, will become null and void because of new elevation data and the effects of subsidence. More information is available on the Elevation Certificates page.
Five public information fairs were held throughout Harris County to provide residents another opportunity to view the Preliminary FIRMs and ask questions when they were originally released in 2004.
More information is available on the following:
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