FEMA Outlines Plans for Windsor-Area Floodplains
By Damien Fisher, Eagle Times, Claremont, N.H.
Feb. 2–WINDSOR — Tonight’s public hearing on the floodplain levels the Federal Emergency Management Agency is proposing for towns all along the Connecticut River will include information about how the maps may affect the downtown area.
Town Administrator Don Howard said Wednesday that the major changes in the new maps will be in the area from the River Street/Jarvis Street intersection to the Bridge Street area, and not the Rails to the River section of downtown.
“There is no major bearing on the Rails to the River area,” Howard said.
The Rails to the River plan, spearheaded by community members and business people, is to create manufacturing, residential, recreational and office space in the area between the railroad tracks and Connecticut River where Goodyear and Cone Blanchard once were.
Howard said that area has always been in a floodplain, as identified by FEMA, and that any changes will not have a major impact on any plans for redevelopment.
Howard said the biggest changes are where FEMA is projecting a 100-year flood event. Howard said that under a worst case scenario, water would rise over the 25-foot bank of the Connectict along Jarvis Street and flow into River Street, parts of the Goodyear property and along towards the Windsor water treatment plant.
FEMA has not updated the flood maps in about 20 years and the levels set by FEMA have the potential to impact building regulations and insurance rates for development within the floodplain.
Howard said the information presented tonight is not considered final. The hearing is meant to give residents a chance to learn about the basis for the new maps, details about the adoption process and the impacts these changes may have on insurance rates.
“That’s not to say that if there are proven questions or issues they will not be addressed,” Howard said.
The meeting is set for 7 p.m. in the Martin Memorial Hall in Weathersfield.
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Copyright (c) 2006, Eagle Times, Claremont, N.H.
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