The first thing to know about a flood zone is that it is a line on a map. The second is that you cannot see it from the street. It runs through blocks rather than along them, so your house and the house next door can sit in two categories with two different answers about water.
Haha. I have looked at a lot of these maps and that still strikes me as strange. Let’s talk about what the letters mean, where the answer for your parcel is kept, what your buyer’s lender does with it, and the one piece of paper that can move the line.
THE LABEL ON THE MAP IS A SENTENCE, NOT A SCORE
FEMA identifies flood hazard areas on the Flood Insurance Rate Map as a Special Flood Hazard Area. In FEMA’s own words, that is the area that would be inundated by the flood event having a 1 percent chance of being equaled or exceeded in any given year. The same page gives it the two other names you have heard: the base flood, and the hundred year flood.
So the number in the name is a probability, not a calendar. A hundred year flood is not a flood that shows up once a century and then leaves you alone. It is a 1 percent chance in any given year, which is less comforting.
The labels are a list of situations, not a ranking. Zone A, AO, AH, AE and the numbered A zones are all inside that 1 percent area. Zone B and Zone X shaded sit between the edge of the base flood and the 0.2 percent annual chance flood. Outside all of it is Zone C or Zone X unshaded, the minimal hazard area.
YOUR BUYER'S LENDER ASKS A NARROWER QUESTION THAN THE WATER DOES
Here is where a zone stops being trivia and starts moving a sale. Sacramento County’s own flood insurance page puts it plainly: flood insurance is required if the property is in a designated high risk flood zone and the loan comes from a federally regulated or insured lender. If the zone says high risk and the lender is federally regulated or insured, the policy is part of the deal.
The same page says nearly 20 percent of flood insurance claims come from moderate to low risk areas, and that Zone X properties can buy a policy even though nobody requires one. There is also a 30 day waiting period on new policies, so a closing two weeks out is a calendar problem, not a paperwork problem.
None of this says your house will take water. It says what the lender will require before the loan closes.
WHERE THE ANSWER FOR YOUR PARCEL IS ACTUALLY KEPT
The zone for a specific parcel is a lookup, and the county publishes four ways to do it in the unincorporated area. Call the Flood Zone Hotline at (916) 874-7517. Walk into the public counter at 827 7th Street, Room 102, weekdays between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Use the county’s online map with FEMA floodplain information, enter the address or the parcel number, and read the Flood Zone section. Or send the county’s request form and let staff answer.
One line on that page is easy to miss. To know whether an elevation certificate is already on file, you have to ask. Ask, because that certificate is the argument in your favor.
Inside an incorporated city, the county sends you to the city instead, which is a different article and a different set of files. The county tracks proposed changes for creeks in the unincorporated area, including Elder Creek, Gerber Creek, Laguna Creek and the Laguna Inter-Basin Transfer.
THE ONE PIECE OF PAPER THAT CAN MOVE THE LINE
If you believe the map has your property wrong, FEMA has a process, and it is not a complaint. It is a Letter of Map Change request, and it comes in two shapes. A Letter of Map Amendment covers an existing structure or parcel that sits on naturally high ground and has not been elevated by fill. A Letter of Map Revision Based on Fill covers ground that was raised with earthen fill. Same family, different fact about your lot.
What comes back is a determination document, approving or denying the change. If it is granted, FEMA’s page says the owner may no longer be required to pay flood insurance, and may send the determination to the lender and ask that the federal flood insurance requirement for the structure be removed.
I want to be careful about how that sounds. It is a real route, and it is measured rather than argued: the request turns on elevation, and FEMA can deny it. Start with the county, because the certificate may already exist in a file.
THIS REGION KEEPS A RECORD OF THE WATER, AND IT IS IN FEET
The county’s short table of major flood history is worth reading as a local document. In 1955 the high water reached 10.7 feet at Lambert Road North, then 11.8 in 1958. In 1982 it was 11.5 at Hood Franklin Road, and 10.5 there in 1983. In 1986 it hit 14.0 at Lambert Road North, and in 1997 it was 11.8, back at Lambert Road North.
Those are high water elevations in feet on the NGVD1929 datum, which is survey language, not a depth in a kitchen. Read them as how close the water has come to a fixed line over seventy years, which is what a map summarizes.
The older half of the story, the 1862 flood and the years this city spent raising its own streets, is a different article and I am not going to tell it twice.
WHAT I DO WITH ALL OF THIS WHEN I WALK A HOUSE
Before I make an offer, I look up the parcel. In a high risk zone I want three things: whether an elevation certificate exists, whether a determination was ever issued for the structure, and whether the line crosses the house or only the back of the lot.
Then I say the part that is not fun. A flood zone does not tell me the house has ever taken water, and it does not tell you what it is worth. It tells me who must carry a policy. If the house needs work on top of that, it is the same conversation I have on an as-is sale, and you can see how the process runs if you want the sequence first.
Anyway, thanks for being here. Question for you: have you ever pulled the flood zone for your own address, or is this the first time anyone told you it is a separate lookup? The service area page says where I work.
