SOUTHWEST FLORIDA — As peak hurricane season quickly approaches, and with many experts calling for an above-normal season, FEMA is sharing, what it feels, is an urgent message with southwest Florida residents: get flood insurance!
“I was there in SWFL just a number of weeks after Hurricane Ian hit. I talked to people who had (flood) insurance and people who didn’t have the insurance and there is a world of difference,” said Jeff Jackson with FEMA.
FEMA says policies typically take 30 days to go into effect.
Most homeowners and renters insurance policies do not cover flood losses.
According to FEMA, in the past 20 years, 99% of counties in the U.S. experienced a flood event and nearly half of counties in the U.S. experienced a flood event in the past five years alone.
“Just because it missed you one time, only means it missed you that one time. It’s not backed by science to say, ‘my community had a 100-year flood so for the next 99 years I’m going to be safe.'"
Jeff Jackson
Deputy Assistant Administrator, FEMA
Lee County and several cities within the county briefly lost a critical FEMA flood insurance discount in March 2024. FEMA cited a lack of documentation and oversight on permitted building in the months after Hurricane Ian, and the decision upset many local leaders, including the Mayor of Cape Coral who was especially vocal about the decision.
Watch FOX 4's Community Correspondents cover the discount dispute in some of your communities below.
But after several months of work, all of those communities regained the discount by July 2024. Additional compliance work was still ongoing, with another deadline set for mid-November.
Watch FOX 4's Community Correspondents cover the resolutions in some of your communities below.
