Analysis: Decision to borrow $22M for levees paid off

Once completed, developers started projects, homeowners saved money

Fifteen years ago this summer, the owners of more than 1,200 properties in Sioux Falls were watching the clock tick. When it expired, they knew it would be costly.

One year earlier, in October 2007, the Federal Emergency Management Agency had arrived at a Sioux Falls City Council meeting and announced that a new floodplain map had been drafted for the area. Suddenly, those 1,200 properties were now in the floodplain. With that came the requirement to purchase flood insurance.

Normally, city officials would have received more advance warning, but they didn’t, and the FEMA briefing left Mayor Dave Munson fuming.

“I have a lot of empathy for those homeowners, because those are big numbers,” he said at the time. “It’s not a good news story for anybody.”

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