flood resilience

Montpelier, Vt. – Recent flooding has altered Vermont’s landscape and property owners understandably have questions. The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has prepared answers to common questions:

Q: Recent flooding moved the stream/river extremely close to my home/business. Will the state come and fix it?

A: If you feel your home or business is unsafe, take necessary measures to protect your safety, including leaving the building.

Flood Resilience is a term that has become more commonly used, and generally means that damages are minimized during times of flooding resulting in less risk to people and infrastructure and ensuring that there is ample room for flooding and river adjustment to occur where the opportunity may exist. It also means that flood recovery may be less expensive and may get people back on their feet more quickly than in past flood events, and that the water resource is not negatively affected and is able to recover on its own.

Becoming more flood resilient, through restoring, protecting and conserving river corridors and floodplains has several benefits.  Avoiding human encroachment in areas susceptible to flooding and erosion mitigates the loss of life and property during floods.  River corridors and floodplains also provide important terrestrial and aquatic habitat and help to maintain and improve water quality.  Additional incentives for communities to take actions to become more flood resilient include receiving priority rating in several competitive grant programs administered by the Agency of Natural Resour

The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is a voluntary program managed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Federal Insurance Agency (FIA).  The NFIP provides access to federally-backed flood insurance.  The NFIP was created by the US congress in 1968 to try to address the rising costs of flood losses and flood-related disaster assistance across the country.  The focus of this program is aimed at reducing the impacts of flooding on private and public structures through local community adoption of a minimum set of local land use regulations in FEMA-mapped fl