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<br />Alabama Flood Mitigation <br /> <br />BACKGROUND <br /> <br />At the end of a week of rain and flooding in March 1990, about 6,000 people in <br />Alabama had lost their homes or seen their property damaged. Hundreds more had to <br />seek shelter in neighboring Georgia and the Florida Panhandle. Some estimates placed <br />damages from the storms and flooding throughout the state at more than $100 million. <br /> <br />The hardship was summed up at the time by Alabama governor Guy Hunt: "A <br />lifetime of hard work for some disappeared into the raging floodwaters. A lot of our <br />people have never witnessed such devastation from floods before." <br /> <br />Elba, Alabama <br /> <br />Elba has a long history of flooding sterruning from two different causes: I) failure of the <br />town's protective ring levee, which causes major flooding throughout the downtown <br />area-as happened in 1990 and in 1998, and 2) stormwater accumulation within the <br />levee, in the low-lying southcentral and southwestern areas of town-as happened <br />in 1994. <br /> <br />Geneva, Alabama <br /> <br />Like Elba, Geneva has a long history of flooding, In 1861, the town was destroyed by a <br />flood and relocated to higher ground. Since the turn of the century, Geneva has been <br />flooded four times. Three of those events occurred in this decade. <br /> <br />Although not all residents of Geneva were hard hit in each flood, the small residential <br />area of Baptist Bottoms has always received the brunt of the damage. According to the <br />Geneva City Clerk, "with the exception of what they could carry out during the <br />evacuation, [Baptist Bottoms residents] lost everything in the [1990 and 1994] floods." <br /> <br />PROJECTS <br /> <br />After the 1994 flood, Elba applied for a hazard mitigation grant to install a stormwater <br />drainage system. FEMA approved the grant application in July of that year, The <br />system was built in 1997 by widening an existing drainage channel and installing two <br />pumps at low-lying points in the town's southeast quarter. The pumps, designed to <br />remove water quickly from flooded areas, are each capable of moving 17,500 gallons <br />per minute. <br /> <br />To stem the cycle of rusasters, Geneva applied for hazard mitigation grant funds to <br />acquire structures most at risk. FEMA agreed to fund the buyout of dozens of <br />buildings within the floodway of Double Bridges Creek in Baptist Bottoms. A number <br />of additional applications are pending. <br /> <br />BENEFITS <br /> <br />After Tropical Storm Alberto, staff from FEMA's regional office in Atlanta, Georgia <br />worked with local Elba officials to determine the best approach for hazard mitigation. <br />FEMA's benefit-cost analysis determined that the stormwater pumping project the <br />town proposed was cost-effective, The project was designed to mitigate damage from <br />frequent stormwater flooding, such as the town experienced in 1994. <br /> <br />In the aftermath of the 1994 flood, Geneva officials developed what could be <br />considered a model hazard mitigation project. They began an aggressive campaign to <br />