U.S. spending millions to raise flood-ravaged houses..(Not "Katrina" houses)

[SoCalDem]

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/nation/16652132.htm

U.S. spending millions to raise flood-ravaged houses

By Diane Mastrull and Anthony R. Wood

The Philadelphia Inquirer

(MCT)

PHILADELPHIA - The Neshaminy Creek has not been kind to the people who love it.

On good days, it may be a well-mannered neighbor to the few thousand Bucks County, Pa., residents living by its banks, from Wrightstown 50 miles south to the Delaware River at Bensalem. But on bad days, a rain-swollen Neshaminy washes over lawns and into basements. On very bad days - ones recalled by name, like Floyd (Sept. 15-16, 1999) and Allison (June 16-17, 2001) - it barges through doors and knocks houses off foundations.

Flood-battered property owners always had two options: Throw in the towel and move out, or stay and pray.

Recently, they've been handed a third, compliments of the U.S. taxpayer: Move up.

In what is thought to be the largest such project in the nation, the federal government is spending $16 million to hoist 90 houses in seven communities onto concrete stilts or towering foundations, out of reach of the ill-tempered Neshaminy. Fifty already have been lifted, at heights from 3 1/2 feet to 14 feet. The rest are to be done by 2009.

Elevation is laborious, typically taking two months. It is costly, averaging $175,000. And the result can look weird.

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Now they have popped up in places like Yardley, Pa., regularly ravaged by Delaware River flooding. Nineteen houses there have been raised in 18 months. To the north in New Hope, a four-condominium building that has been swamped three times since September 2004 is being lifted at a cost of $1 million.

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Almost all the funding for the Neshaminy project is coming from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which has been involved for decades in flood protection through its Natural Resources Conservation Service. The county has chipped in $1.6 million.

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The Sejdas jumped at the opportunity to raise the house, which they figure is worth $400,000. Washington paid the $248,000 tab and, as with all the displaced, put them up for two months at Korman Suites.

Chris, a 40-year-old nurse, said that in the long run he would be doing taxpayers a service: "I won't be making a claim on flood insurance."

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In the latest tally, FEMA has paid to elevate 28 buildings in Pennsylvania floodplains since 1993, but has bought and torn down 1,100. In New Jersey, FEMA has elevated 57 and acquired 185.

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