NEW ORLEANS — A new lawsuit, just filed in Federal Court in New Orleans argues FEMA’s new system of calculating flood premiums is unlawful and should be scrapped.
Risk rating 2.0 has sent rates through the roof for many homeowners along the Gulf Coast.
About a month after Hurricane Ida smacked Louisiana nearly two years ago, local leaders argue many residents were hit with a second disaster.
That’s when FEMA started applying the rating system.
“We’re seeing people go from $500 to $5,000 and 6,000 dollars a year on the backs of already high homeowners’ costs, on the backs of high-interest rates, on the backs of high building costs," Lafourche Parish President Archie Chaisson said.
“We’ve seen an impact of people who have not come back to St. Charles Parish after Hurricane Ida,” St. Charles Parish President Matt Jewell said. “They have been rebuilding and now deciding, I’ll just sell that home and move somewhere else.”
Thursday, the first day of the 2023 hurricane season, Louisiana Attorney General and candidate for governor Jeff Landry announced the filing at a news conference at GNO, Inc in downtown New Orleans.
The litigation argues Risk Rating 2.0 is shrouded in secrecy and unequitable for ratepayers, and it does not take into account the billions of dollars in flood mitigation measures taken by local governments and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“This policy is completely disruptive to the housing market and the business climate of our state, and it’s further driving people out of this state, both families and businesses,” Landry said.
Chaisson said Risk Rating 2.0 is more than just a pocketbook issue, it’s an attack on a way of life in south Louisiana.
“Lafourche Parish is about 98,000 people, with the majority of which put on work boots or shrimp boots, and they provide, and we feed and fuel America through Lafourche Parish. If we don’t have people on the coast who can do that how are those jobs going to survive and how are we going to keep the culture, there.”
Jewell said some people in his parish, like folks living in Bayou Gauche have seen their flood premiums go up by more than 750 percent.
“If we can win this lawsuit and we can see the data that FEMA used to create these full risk premiums, I think you’re going to see the data is wildly inaccurate.”
The plaintiffs include nine other states, 43 parishes, and a list of local governments and levee districts.
The lawsuit is asking the court to immediately block FEMA from using Risk Rating 2.0.
It is also seeking to return to the agency’s previous way of calculating flood premiums until the matter can be litigated.
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