By Kerry Smith, Florida Realtors

The government agency that oversees other agencies said that FEMA needs to inspect high-risk-flood communities more often – notably the ones in Fla. and Texas.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) audits other government agencies to hold them accountable, and it recently completed an audit of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) – and specifically the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).

Communities that participate in NFIP must mitigate possible flood damage, and rates are determined by how well they do that.

FEMA inspects communities to see how well they follow NFIP requirements. The visits include evaluations of recent construction. Until 2019, FEMA’s goal was to visit all communities considered to be high-risk for flooding every 5 years.

However, FEMA did not meet this goal in Florida or Texas in 2008-2019, citing a lack of resources according to the GAO. As a result, many high-risk communities received only one visit in this period – and some weren’t visited at all.

“Without regular monitoring, FEMA’s ability to ensure communities comply with requirements is limited,” GAO reported. Without the inspections, FEMA can’t track violations or deficiencies, or whether the community resolved earlier cited issues.

In Florida, the GAO found that records on visits remained open for years, and FEMA staff weren’t able to say whether that “indicated unresolved deficiencies or incomplete recordkeeping.”

One key problem GAO said was a community’s ability to assess damage on a property after a flood, and whether it’s damaged by 50% or more of its value to ensure it’s then rebuilt to current NFIP standards.

However, “FEMA generally does not collect or analyze the results of these assessments, limiting its ability to ensure the process operates as intended,” the GAO report said. “Furthermore, FEMA has not clarified how communities can access NFIP claims data. Such data would help communities target substantial damage assessments after a flood.”

The GAO made four recommendations to FEMA: