How to get money to protect your home from flooding in Miami Beach
Miami Beach resident Laurie Davis is used to seeing water from time to time inside her converted garage on Lincoln Road. But after June's torrential rainstorm, the water time seeped past her French glass doors into the house for the first time — her towels and blankets unable to stem the flow.
'This is our home. We've been here since 2001 we can't afford to raise a house,' Davis said after attending a meeting for a new city program to help residents offset the cost of flood control measures. 'Just whatever I can get, whatever I can do if there's another heavy rain like this.'
She has already bought an EzDam flood barrier for $900 but says she would need at least four more to protect all the glass doors around her house.
Davis hopes applying to a Miami Beach grant program called 'Fight the Flood Property Adaptation' could help with that purchase and also provide expert advice on how to best protect her home in the future.
The Fight the Flood program, which is open to apply to until April 25, offers up to $20,000 matched for flood adaptation projects in private homes and commercial buildings in Miami Beach, with a priority on historic properties. Applicants considered low-to-moderate income will not be required to match the reimbursement.
'To make the city resilient in a holistic way it's important to look at the private side as well ... we have to work together to do that,' Juanita Ballesteros, the City of Miami Beach sustainability and resilience manager said during a panel to discuss the program this month at the Miami Beach Botanical Gardens.
Mitigation projects the program could support include short-term solutions like permeable pavement with gaps between the gravel that act as a reservoir for passing water, electrical system protection and rain gardens with native plants that absorb the water. It's also open to larger projects like seawalls and home-raising.
'We want to do incremental adaptation, you know, things that we can build upon over time, and things that are going to stand the test of time,' Amy Knowles, the Chief Resilience Officer of Miami Beach said.
Miami Beach is a barrier island for the mainland and 93% of properties are in FEMA flood protection zones — which means all mortgages are required to have flood insurance. So far, 55 Miami Beach properties have received funding from the program including six historic homes, nine multifamily, two commercial properties and five low to moderate-income residences. Ballesteros said that they were working with two homeowners interested in elevating their homes but have been waiting on the FEMA applications to move forward for two years.
The first part of the program is about education and expert advice. The city funds a $2,500 property consultation which evaluates the home and gives residents a menu of flood adaptation items to choose from at different price ranges. In the second half of the program, residents are required to find their own contractors, with up to $17,500 of the project being reimbursed.
'You don't have to spend $17,500 and can get a $1,000 flood barrier that can save you for the next rainstorm,' Alec Bogdanoff, a principal at the engineering consulting firm Brizaga, who leads the assessments said.
'Flooding is a little like high blood pressure, in that most of the time you may not be able to actually solve the high blood pressure problem. It's just a matter of, how do we control it for as long as we can,' he said.
Make sure to allow extra time to collect documents before applying: property elevation certificate, flood insurance and proof of ownership, ID and income information and historic designation if applicable.
The state also has an application open for a residential flood mitigation program called Elevate Florida created to physically raise existing homes, rebuild homes taller and strengthen roofs, roofs and windows from wind damage. The application closes on April 11.
The property does not need to have experienced flooding to apply to the Elevate Florida Program led by the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) but houses with a history of flood loss are prioritized.
Ashley Miznazi is a climate change reporter for the Miami Herald funded by the Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Family Foundation in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners.
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