Central mayor describes local modeling, gauges and rules that reduced flood risk and cut insurance costs
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Wade Evans, mayor of the city of Central, told the task force his city adopted a set of local measures — independent lidar flights, a customized off‑site drainage model, additional stream gauges and revised development rules — that the city credits with reduced flood risk and lower community flood-insurance costs.
Mayor Evans said Central reworked local development rules to require mitigation for changes in conveyance, conducted its own high-resolution lidar surveys, installed stream gauges and combined those data into a local forecasting model. “We built an off-site drainage analysis tool,” Evans said, and ‘‘we can show our residents exactly what potential impacts developments will have.” He told the task force the city expects its community‑rating system (CRS) classification to improve and that a higher CRS rating would lower insurance premiums for homeowners.
Why this matters: Mayor Evans’ testimony provided a local-government example of steps communities can take to reduce risk and lower insurance costs before or alongside major federal projects. He reported Central spent about $470,000 on a stream‑gage network and roughly $2.5 million over several years on model development and data work, and he described those as investments that yield both technical forecasts and improved resilience.
What Central did
- High-resolution lidar and repeated surveys to update models and track changes over time.
- An off‑site drainage analysis based on widely used modeling tools, adapted for local needs and integrated with bridge and culvert inventories.
- A distributed stream‑gage network and a five‑to‑15 minute forecast cadence that provides advance warning to residents in high-risk neighborhoods.
- Revised local rules and development review to restrict alterations that would increase conveyance to downstream properties.
Outcome: Evans said the city won a large federal grant (described in the meeting as a $55 million package of projects) to implement large-scale detention and conveyance projects and that the actions together should push Central toward a CRS rating of 4, which the mayor said would save the community about $1 million annually in flood-insurance premiums.
Quotations
“We can show our residents exactly what potential impacts developments will have and we are very confident when we approve a development in Central,” Mayor Wade Evans said. “We took the data that we were blessed with from the flood, and turned it into something magical with our consulting team.”
Ending
Task‑force members praised Central’s approach and asked whether its tools could be replicated in other parishes. Legislators discussed possible state-level support to scale similar local forecasting and inventory efforts.
Mayor Evans said Central reworked local development rules to require mitigation for changes in conveyance, conducted its own high-resolution lidar surveys, installed stream gauges and combined those data into a local forecasting model. “We built an off-site drainage analysis tool,” Evans said, and ‘‘we can show our residents exactly what potential impacts developments will have.” He told the task force the city expects its community‑rating system (CRS) classification to improve and that a higher CRS rating would lower insurance premiums for homeowners.
Why this matters: Mayor Evans’ testimony provided a local-government example of steps communities can take to reduce risk and lower insurance costs before or alongside major federal projects. He reported Central spent about $470,000 on a stream‑gage network and roughly $2.5 million over several years on model development and data work, and he described those as investments that yield both technical forecasts and improved resilience.
What Central did
- High-resolution lidar and repeated surveys to update models and track changes over time.
- An off‑site drainage analysis based on widely used modeling tools, adapted for local needs and integrated with bridge and culvert inventories.
- A distributed stream‑gage network and a five‑to‑15 minute forecast cadence that provides advance warning to residents in high-risk neighborhoods.
- Revised local rules and development review to restrict alterations that would increase conveyance to downstream properties.
Outcome: Evans said the city won a large federal grant (described in the meeting as a $55 million package of projects) to implement large-scale detention and conveyance projects and that the actions together should push Central toward a CRS rating of 4, which the mayor said would save the community about $1 million annually in flood-insurance premiums.
Quotations
“We can show our residents exactly what potential impacts developments will have and we are very confident when we approve a development in Central,” Mayor Wade Evans said. “We took the data that we were blessed with from the flood, and turned it into something magical with our consulting team.”
Ending
Task‑force members praised Central’s approach and asked whether its tools could be replicated in other parishes. Legislators discussed possible state-level support to scale similar local forecasting and inventory efforts.
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