The Chronicle plans to publish a week-long series of stories exploring the economic impacts of the proposed Federal Emergency Management Agency’s expanded floodplain maps within the Chehalis River basin.
We’ll throw a lot of the newsrooms’ resources into the series. Our contention is the FEMA floodplain maps, if they remain as proposed, will negatively affect our economy at an extreme level, with Chehalis suffering the mightiest blow. Businesses and residents in the area between the Twin Cities are also at peril, as is west Lewis County and Centralia to a lesser extent. We believe this issue is of high importance, and due to its complexities, is not all that well understood by the public at large.
We’ll begin our series on Feb. 8, exactly 15 years after the 1996 floods that swept through the river basin. That flood (which has since been overshadowed by the December 2007 flood) was ranked by the National Weather Service as the eighth most significant weather event in Washington state in the 20th century. In February 1996, both the Chehalis and Skookumchuck rivers crested at their highest recorded levels at the time. A state of emergency was declared by the governor. Interstate 5, under six feet of water, closed down.
Our FEMA series will begin with a historical look at our area’s flooding. We will follow with examinations of the worst-case scenarios that could occur if the floodplains are approved as first presented. We’ll take a look at the personal toll the expanded maps would take on area business owners and residents. Another potential peril is the switch of taxation that might be increased on people and businesses living outside of the floodplain. Would much of our retail core eventually relocate out of the Twin Cities, and perhaps out of Lewis County? We’ll talk to those who believe expanded floodplain maps are in our best interest, as well as look at how dams and levees might change the expansion proposal. We’ll end the series detailing the political battle to negotiate with FEMA on the size of the floodplain.
We’re not the only ones believing the proposed FEMA maps are of great importance to our community.
On Tuesday night, the Centralia City Council unanimously approved to contribute $10,000 toward an effort to review and revise the proposed floodplain maps. Centralia joins Lewis County, Chehalis, the Port of Chehalis, the Chehalis-Centralia Airport Board and the Centralia-Chehalis Chamber of Commerce on the FEMA Working Group. In total, those groups have now raised $108,000. Total expenses are estimated at $120,000.
This cooperative effort across the county is to be applauded. The expanded floodplain maps as proposed would cause great damage to our economy over time.
