Virginia
Insurance payments to repeatedly flooding Va. properties continue to rise • Virginia Mercury
When it comes to protecting against flooding, the National Flood Insurance Program is increasingly underwater in Virginia, especially in Hampton Roads.
A new analysis and online tool created by the Natural Resources Defense Council reveals that nearly 7,000 Virginia properties had repeated claims for flood damage over 10 years. And the program, administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, will keep paying out. Only 554 of those properties mitigated their flood risk through methods like basement filling, house raising, or replacing it with a structure that can better withstand flooding, according to the NRDC research.
“One of the most frustrating things about the flood rebuild model that we’re following in the United States is that there is currently no requirement for property owners to mitigate their property to reduce the likelihood of repeat flood damage,” said Mary-Carson Stiff, executive director of Wetlands Watch, a nonprofit based in Norfolk that helps create resilience and adaptation solutions.
In the past, FEMA has declined to provide details about flooded properties and while individual addresses are not included in the data, the new analysis includes key information about payouts, flood mitigation, and zip codes.
NRDC’s data shows that the number of repetitive loss properties continues to rise as storms grow more intense and more frequent in a warming world. They also illustrate the inadequacy of FEMA flood maps, which are updated infrequently and have relied on outdated data that looks back rather than forward at a hotter, wetter Virginia. But those maps continue to guide developers, engineers, banks, local land use officials, and homeowners when deciding where to build and finance a project.
“The cost of flooding is increasing every single year with every big storm event and small event,” Stiff said.
In Virginia, three-quarters of the repetitive loss properties are in Hampton Roads. Of those, 841 are severe repetitive loss properties, which have reported four or more claims of more than $5,000. The vast majority — 689 — have not been mitigated against future flooding. They accounted for 1% of the Virginia claims but 21% of the payments. According to NRDC, 10% of them are outside FEMA-designated flood zones. Nearly 3,000 of the properties whose owners have been paid claims in Virginia no longer have flood insurance.
Virginia Beach had 128 severe repetitive loss properties paid more than $20 million. That’s an average of more than $150,000 each. Of that, 114 were not mitigated. Norfolk had 125 severe loss properties paid $18 million with 93 not mitigated. Hampton had 110 properties paid $18.2 million with 91 not mitigated. Poquoson, a city of about 12,500 on a peninsula on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay, had 50 severe risk loss properties paid nearly $6.6 million.
The NRDC data illustrates the co-dependent flood and payout cycle it calls “losing ground.”
In some cases, the damage payouts exceeded the property’s value. In Norfolk, one single family home received $173,736 over seven claims, but had a value of $104,400, according to the database. It was not protected against future flooding. A Virginia Beach home worth $149,400 received $243,502 in payments and while it’s still insured, it is not mitigated against flooding. A single-family home in Portsmouth, insured and mitigated against flooding, received $250,558 in two claims, but is worth $239,380. One Richmond property in the database, labeled non-residential, received nearly $1.4 million in payouts but has a value of $211,750. It is no longer insured or protected. An insured single-family home in Poquoson worth $155,300, according to the database, received five claims totaling $480,010.
The relatively new FEMA insurance rates, called Risk Rating 2.0, attempt to take a more realistic and equitable look at flood insurance. Most policyholders saw their premiums either drop or increase by no more than $10 per month in its first year. Under the law, no premium can increase by more than 18% annually.
But in a column last year, Chad Berginnis, executive director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers, agreed with Stiff that flood hazard mitigation measures needed to be credited and that FEMA needed to be clearer about which mix of mitigation would translate into reduced premiums.
“When we talk of the NFIP, we often talk about it as a four-legged stool: floodplain management, flood mitigation, floodplain mapping, and flood insurance,” he wrote. “However, it’s become clear to the floodplain management community that the new rating system has severed those first two legs and as a nation we still haven’t prioritized flood mapping the entire U.S. to better reflect flood risk.”
Stiff noted the present system leads to “the active bankrupting of the National Flood Insurance Program. We’re all on the hook to bail them out.”
Communities, she added, can track cumulative damage to a property and, when it reaches the FEMA threshold of more than 50% rebuilding, require the owners to bring it up to the latest flood protection standards. But that’s not an option Virginia cities have embraced.
“It is a higher standard that local governments can elect to use in their communities, and if they do, then they receive credit through the community rating system, which will lower flood insurance policies annually for every policyholder in the local government,” she added. “There are ways in which our communities can be proactive against this issue, but our communities are choosing not to take these additional measures because it’s politically unappetizing.”
The NRDC’s recommended solutions for the repeated payouts echo her comments and include:
- Update building codes and land use standards for development in floodplains.
- Ensure flood-risk maps are updated and account for future risk.
- Make flood insurance more affordable for low and moderate-income households.
- Give home buyers and renters the information to understand their risk.
Anna Weber, senior policy analyst for environmental health at the NRDC, noted that Virginia is one of many states that do not require sellers to disclose a property’s flood history. Only seven states require tenants to be notified, according to a new paper in the Journal of Land Use.
“Virginia is effectively a buyer-beware state,” she said. “There’s very little that you are guaranteed a right to in terms of that information. So, when we talk about flood disclosure, we think it’s important that people have a right to know not just what it says about your home on a FEMA flood insurance map, but what specifically has happened in the past at that property. Has it flooded before? Have there been flood insurance claims? How much did those claims cost? How many times has the home flooded?”
While Weber and others call the FEMA maps inadequate, they also note they are often out of date. They’re required to be updated every five years, but often are not. Norfolk’s map, for instance, has not been updated since 2017.
Flooding, Weber noted, has multiple causes that call for multifaceted solutions.
“Some of that looks like thinking hard about our land use choices. Some of that looks like improving and strengthening our building codes so that we’re building in a smarter way,” she said. “Some of that has to do with long-term community planning. What do we want our coastal communities to look like in 50 years?” she said. “In 100 years, we may not be able to live in the same places in the same ways as we have in the past.”
Michael Gerrard, the founder of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, recently published a paper examining the legal tools to combat what he called a growing crisis of urban flooding. He endorsed many of the same solutions proposed by the NRDC.
“It makes no sense to continue to rebuild the same house at government expense,” he said, adding that there needs to be a reckoning with the costs of the climate crisis”The overall problem is that people and governments are unwilling to pay for the cost that climate change is imposing,” he said. “And that will just get worse over time as the climate worsens.”
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ARLINGTON, Va. (7News) — After months of television ads, mailings, and debates, Virginia voters head to the polls Tuesday to vote on whether to approve a redistricting measure that would radically change Congressional maps in order to favor Democrats.
The measure has the potential to determine which party controls Congress after the midterm elections this fall.
ALSO READ | Virginia redistricting vote draws national attention
Virginia polling locations will be open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. The election is unusual in that there are no names of candidates on the ballot. Instead, there is just one question to vote yes or no on:
“Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections, while ensuring Virginia’s standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?”
A yes vote would likely lead to a new map that would be expected to give Democrats a 10 to one edge in Virginia’s Congressional delegation. Under the current map, Democrats have six seats and Republicans have five.
Supporters of voting yes said the measure is in response to states like Texas that have gerrymandered in favor of Republicans winning House seats. But opponents who urge a no vote point out the measure would make Virginia one of the most gerrymandered states in the nation, and would create districts in which many voters don’t share common interests with each other.
The vote is expected to be close.
“It seems to me that a strong turnout effort on election day can give either side a win,” said Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington. “The big challenge for both the yes and the no side is to get people who will support them if they turn out to actually do soI think anybody who is not strongly committed one side or the other is likely to stay home.”
ALSO READ | Virginia voters to decide redistricting that could flip 4 GOP seats
Advertisements and messaging from both sides have left some voters confused. For example, both supporters and opponents of the measure have referenced Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger. She supports the measure to counterbalance Republican actions elsewhere, but in the past she has made strong statements against the type of gerrymandering the ballot measure would allow.
“Usually when people are confused, they don’t vote. Some of them do, but most of them don’t,” said Larry Sabato, the director of The Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
Sabato said it’s tough to predict which side will win. Even though the limited polling that’s been done has given a narrow edge to the yes vote, data related to early voting may tell a different story.
“Normally, you would think given Virginia’s pretty strong Democratic lean, that this very partisan referendum would be enough to generate Democratic turnout for Democrats to win,” he said. “But I’ll tell you why people are hesitant – they’ve seen large turnouts in conservative, Republican areas. Because [voters in those areas] are mad. Their representatives are being eliminated through this process.”
“This is going to be tied very closely to how one feels about President Trump,” Farnsworth said. “The people who don’t like President Trump will vote in favor of this amendment. The people who do like President Trump will vote against it.”
It’s not clear how many people will actually show up at the polls on election day Tuesday.
“People who were very interested in this, who were knowledgeable about the subject, probably voted early for the most part,” Sabato said.
Mail-in ballots can still be dropped off at official drop boxes until 7 p.m. on Tuesday, and if they are mailed they need to be postmarked by Tuesday and received by noon on Friday.
WASHINGTON — Virginia Senator Mark Warner and Lisa Collis are mourning the loss of their daughter Madison.
The 36-year-old died after a “decades-long battle with juvenile diabetes,” the couple said in a statement
“We are heartbroken beyond words by the passing of our beloved daughter,” the statement read. “She filled our lives with love and laughter, and her absence leaves an immeasurable void.”
Warner and Collis said they were are grateful for the loving support of friends and family and asked for privacy as they grieve.
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Virginians are heading to the polls to vote “yes” or “no” on a ballot initiative in a high-stakes special election that could upend this year’s midterm elections.
Voters on Tuesday will decide if they want to move forward with Democrats’ redistricting plan which would significantly change the state’s congressional map, giving Democrats a 10-1 advantage instead of the current 6-5 Democratic to Republican split.
Virginia is one of many states that took a look at their congressional maps this year after President Donald Trump encouraged Republican-led states to redraw their maps ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Both parties in Virginia are pushing get out the vote efforts as early voting lags behind previous years and a huge amount of cash is flowing into the mid-decade redistricting effort.
Here’s what to know:
Democrats try to eliminate several GOP seats
In February, Virginia Democrats finalized an agreement over how to redraw the state’s congressional map. It would lead to eight safely Democratic districts, two districts that lean Democratic and one safe Republican district.
As it currently stands, Virginia has six Democrats and five Republicans in the House.
The amendment passed by Democrats in February would temporarily bypass the state’s typical redistricting process. If voters approve the amendment through the referendum on April 21, Democrats would be able to move forward with their map.
The amendment would put in place a temporary process. After the 2030 census, the state’s standard redistricting process would resume with maps to be decided by a bipartisan commission.
The lead-up to the election has seen an influx of spending, and The Washington Post noted that due to state election records, 95% of the total $93 million raised as of Monday came from nonprofit groups that are not required to disclose their donors.
The leading group, Virginians for Fair Elections, reported raising $64 million in favor of the referendum. About $40 million of that came from House Majority Forward, which is led by House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., the Post reported using data from tracking firm AdImpact. The Fairness Project added $11.7 million to the effort. It’s backed by new Gov. Abigail Spanberger.
Virginians for Fair Elections secured a television advertisement for voting “yes” on the ballot initiative featuring former President Barack Obama. He said voting the measure through was the “responsible” thing to do.
The group that wants Virginians to vote “no” on the measure is made up of several smaller groups, including Virginians for Fair Maps. That group took in $22 million and another $7 million was raised by Justice for Democracy PAC, an anti-redistricting group, Cardinal News, a southern Virginia outlet, reported.
According to Cardinal News, the $7 million donation to the PAC was given by a nonprofit, which didn’t have to disclose its donors. However, that same nonprofit was used by billionaire Peter Thiel in support of Vice President JD Vance’s 2022 Senate campaign.
Even if Virginians pass the measure, the process putting in place the new map is still under judicial review, with the state Supreme Court hearing a challenge later this month.
The Deseret News has reached out to both Virginians for Fair Maps and the Fairness Project for comment.
How did we get here?
Trump kick-started the redistricting battle last year with the Texas Republican congressional delegation and told them the state should seek five new seats that the Republican Party could win through redistricting.
It was a sign that Trump was looking to not have a repeat of his first presidency, when Democrats flipped the House two years into his term.
In response, California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared “game on” and instructed the California state Legislature to redraw the state’s maps to find five additional seats for the Democrats.
Californians overwhelmingly passed Proposition 50 in a special election last year.
Missouri followed, calling a special session to redraw its state map, looking to gain one GOP seat. North Carolina was next, announcing new plans for a redistricting session last October.
Several other states have joined the nationwide fight, wotj varying outcomes, including Ohio, New York, Maryland, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Illinois, Indiana, Nebraska, Colorado and Kansas.
What does it mean?
Historically, the party that controls the White House almost always loses ground with voters in the midterm elections. In the last 20 out of 22 midterms dating back to 1938, the president’s party has lost ground in the House; the only exceptions were due to unusual circumstances like the 9/11 terror attacks and former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment.
Upon returning to the White House, Trump has had the benefit of a slim Republican majority in both the House and Senate. In the House, there are currently 217 Republicans, 213 Democrats, one independent that caucuses with the GOP and four vacancies.
While the GOP looks to gain about 15 new seats through redistricting, Democrats may come out on top. According to RealClearPolitics’ polling averages for generic 2026 congressional voting, Democrats have a 5.6 percentage point advantage, up 2.9 percentage points from last October.
It’s a trend that may change over the next several months, particularly as the Trump administration aims to make its case with voters that the Iran war was necessary and consumers see gas prices stabilize.
However, it is something that has Republicans concerned. They’ve shown enough concern that Democrats could flip the House and even the Senate — where the GOP has a 53-45 majority — that they are preparing for a Supreme Court justice retirement in the coming months. They know that if Democrats control the upper chamber and a retirement happens, there’s no way one of Trump’s appointees would be voted through.
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