"The city of Austin has done a really wonderful job since 1978," Federal Emergency Management Agency engineer Shabbar Saifee said this week.

Friday, March 09, 2001

"The city of Austin has done a really wonderful job since 1978," Federal Emergency Management Agency engineer Shabbar Saifee said this week.

Saifee was addressing members of the City Council and department heads as part of an exit interview, after spending time in town since mid-January to review the effectiveness of Austin’s land acquisition flood plan.

By acquiring homes in the flood plain, the city has saved millions, more than it would have by building dams and levees.

FEMA contributes money to a city when the city leadership decides it cannot handle an emergency and makes a request for assistance to the governor, who then goes to the federal government.

Making a point of stressing that his numbers and analysis are "preliminary," Saifee said Wednesday his report will be submitted to the FEMA office in Chicago in two weeks, after which it will be reviewed and possibly revised.

His methodology also might be questioned, he said.

He explained the benefit to cost ratio of flood events in Austin’s history since 1978. With each event, Saifee converted the cost and loss avoided amounts into today’s dollars.

Fifty-eight homes were purchased with Housing and Urban Development funds after the 1978 flood at a total cost in today’s dollars of $4.8 million. The loss avoided for those same properties, in today’s dollars, would be $3.9 million. (In other words, if you placed the $1.7 million funds the city received after the 1978 flood in the bank in that year, today the funds would equal about $3.9 million.)

Therefore, the recovery ratio of the dollars spent to acquire the properties was 80 percent. "Even 80 percent recovery is good," City Engineer Jon Erichson said.

The cost of acquiring homes is recovered in three to five floods, Saifee said, depending on the magnitude and timing of each subsequent event.

In 1988, FEMA acquired four to five properties directly, after a federal disaster declaration. In today’s dollars, the acquisition cost $215,000. The loss avoided in today’s dollars was $268,000, bringing the payback or recovery ratio to nearly 125 percent. The higher percentage of recovery is because there was another flood (1993) fairly soon after the 1988 flood.

The greater number of flood events following one particular flood multiplies the money saved at a higher rate than if fewer floods had occurred over a longer period of time.

After the 1993 flood, the largest of the three floods (1978, 1988 and 1993) Saifee analyzed, 101 homes were purchased by the city of Austin through money acquired from FEMA at a total cost of $7 million, in today’s dollars.

Losses avoided by the acquisition were $2.6 million, in today’s dollars, which brought a payback ratio of 37 percent. In this case, the losses avoided were smaller because there has only been one flood (2000) since then.

The differences in the loss payback ratios should not be compared, however, Saifee said, because although the numbers are obtained in a similar fashion, each flood event is individual. In addition, the monetary analysis Saifee conducted did not include insurance costs and other emergency response expenses.

"It is not the total picture," he said of his preliminary report.

Saifee also said the fact Austin was not declared a disaster area during last year’s flood is an indication that acquisition is working in our town – there were less homes affected than there would have been if some properties had not been acquired by the city.

The assembled group discussed the approximately 100 homes yet to be acquired by the city.

During the meeting, Saifee advised those present to review Project Impact, a "new opportunity" to proactively act in flood areas prior to an event, such as last summer’s flood in Austin. Funding for the Project Impact budget is dependent on the Bush administration.

Adding a caveat that he did not know the specifics of the program, he said he read that $25 million is available across the nation, which is a small percentage of a multibillion-dollar budget. The money is earmarked for community education and other preventative solutions, such as acquisition.

"We’ve gotta finish up what’s left," McGarvey said, of the 100 properties still to be acquired. The remaining acquisitions could cost $6 million.

"We want a solution that is going to solve the problem," Erichson said, of the city’s desire to continue acquiring properties. "If we wait for the money to build a structure (dam or levee), we will never have the funds to do it."

Saifee made a point of saying FEMA now prefers nonstructural solutions to solve flood problems, which include acquisition. Nonstructural methods – such as acquisition – carry the greatest benefit and the lowest cost. Plus, structural methods can take 15 to 20 years, whereas acquisition can be done fairly expeditiously.

"One of the main problems in ’92 and ’93 was the failure of levees and dams built by engineers like me," Saifee said. "We learned the hard way."

The fundamental principle to keep in mind, Saifee said, is a city cannot build again in the area where properties were acquired with FEMA funds. Rebuilding defeats the purpose of acquiring in the first place.

That Austin has been able to raise money from sources other than local taxpayers to pay for the land acquisition is "wonderful," Saifee said. He called it an example of good community leadership.

Austin is only one of six communities in the entire United States rated a five by the National Flood Insurance Agency. On a scale of one to 10, with one being the optimum rating, Austin’s "five" rating means because of the acquisitions already done, local homeowners’ flood insurance rates are lower.

Before the end of the meeting, Saifee again emphasized that the numbers and analysis he presented during the meeting were "not official, by any means."

In about a month, the city will be able to obtain a copy of the final report of the analysis done on the floods in Austin. Erichson and the others assembled on Wednesday plan to present the final report to the Army Corps of Engineers at a meeting tentatively scheduled for April 5.

Call Kevira Mertha at 434-2233 or e-mail her at newsroom@austindailyherald.com.