The
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) operates the
National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) for communities to establish floodplains and qualify for reduced flood insurance rates. The City of Knoxville (Community 475434) has been a participant in this FEMA program since 1971. The primary requirement is to identify and protect floodplains in order to reduce severe flooding.
Click here to view the Local Hazard Mitigation Plan.
Further Reading:
The current ordinance for floodplain management (Chapter 12 of the City Code -
Flood Damage Prevention and Control Ordinance [PDF]) has been in effect since 1990. This ordinance is a revised version of the earlier floodplain regulations within the City Code of 1962. The City of Knoxville defines the regulatory floodway as the 500-year floodway, which is stricter than the national FEMA requirement of a 100-year floodway.
There are nearly 400 communities from Tennessee that participate in the NFIP, including the neighboring entities of Farragut (Community 470387) and Knox County (Community 475433). FEMA guidelines strictly regulate any form of construction or development within a regulatory floodplain. A developer must demonstrate that there are no impacts to the flood water surface elevations, using FEMA application forms and analysis requirements as shown on the FEMA website. For this reason, it is very difficult and costly to develop within or near a floodplain. In addition to FEMA requirements, any proposed work within a stream typically requires permits from TDEC and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
For a general understanding of how buffer zones and no-fill areas relate to FEMA flood boundaries,
click here to view a Floodplain Cross-Sectional Diagram.
Each participating NFIP community is rated on a scale from 10 (no flood insurance discount) down to 1 (45% flood insurance discount). Nationwide, there are less than 1000 communities that qualify for an insurance discount, as shown on FEMA's
Community Rating System webpage. Currently the City of Knoxville is a Class 6 (20% discount rate) community.
TVA prepared and submitted an updated Flood Insurance Study for the City of Knoxville to FEMA for review and approval. FEMA approved this study and the updated maps and profiles became effective on August 5, 2013. The TVA study included updated HEC-RAS water surface profiles and digital mapping has been integrated into
KGIS, the geographic information system jointly funded by the City of Knoxville, Knox County, and the Knoxville Utilities Board.
FLOOD INSURANCE RATE MAP PROFILES
The Flood Insurance Study (FIS) and profiles can be viewed using the following links:
Flood insurance information can be viewed online and/or purchased inexpensively through the
FEMA Map Service Center or viewed at the offices of the Stormwater Engineering Division (Suite 480 in the City County Building).
Engineering Development Services Division personnel are available for contact at
[email protected] to answer any questions.