This is a great map feature from Georgia Department of Natural Resources.  Just type in your address and find out if your house in the flood plain. Be sure to click aerial on the top right to really see your house.

The link: http://map.georgiadfirm.com/

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The 16 recently added states needing help with structures are: Alabama, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming, bringing the total number of states available for updating to 35. The final release of states by the end of the year will open up the entire country for volunteer structures enhancement.

Preliminary results of the effort have been very promising. As part of the project pilot, The National Map Corps had 143 volunteers who improved data for more than 6,400 structures in Colorado. The quality of the volunteer data collected met the USGS standards for position, attribution, and completeness.

The release of 19 states last April resulted in an increase of 154 new citizen geographers who have contributed their skills and local knowledge to The National Map.

“We are excited to open the next series states of our volunteer data project” said Elizabeth McCartney, the Volunteer Geographic Information Project Leader. “The response from the original set of states has been encouraging and we hope to have volunteer participation across the entire nation by the end of the year.”

read it all http://www.cenews.com/news-national_map_seeks_more_volunteers_for_crowd_sourcing_program-2339.html

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My backyard of Peachtree Creek in DeKalb County, Georgia in 2007.

ATLANTA – The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been working with county and municipal governments over the last several years to incorporate the best available data into new flood maps.

The ultimate goal of the maps is to protect property owners and communities by showing the extent of flood risk in their areas. Flood maps also help to determine flood insurance rating and building requirements.

New flood maps and preliminary data provides the public an early look at their home or community’s projected flood risk. “FEMA is in the process of updating Flood Maps in every state,” says Bryan Baumann, senior mapping analyst at Second Look Flood. “Each year, thousands of homeowners that are wrongly placed in the high-risk flood zone, and those that should be there might not have adequate coverage when a flood does occur. Everyone should know about these updates.”

Regardless of flood zone, everyone should take steps to financially protect themselves from a flood disaster which affects far too many communities each year. The primary way to do this is by purchasing flood insurance. Since standard homeowner’s, business owner’s, and renter’s insurance doesn’t cover flood damage, flood insurance is an important consideration for everyone. via http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=175166#.UcX17jvVD8k

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