Over half a million Californians live in the waterways of the lowland towns of Sacramento and the Joaquin Delta in San.
Pamela Brahan was one of them, and she remembers that she was nine years old in 1972 and one of those soil barriers failed, and the water surged towards the streets and soaked the streets.
“It was almost like a mini tide wave,” Brahan said.
Floods in a small city southwest of Sacramento covered the family’s gardens and poured them into the home. Her parents had to take out loans to rebuild.
Today, Brahan still lives in the same home, and she and thousands of homeowners in the area are insured from floods thanks to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) to support policies sold by private insurers and to provide her with a “peace of mind” that will often be covered in the event of another flood.
However, the Flood Insurance Program is managed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Trump administration says the agency needs a massive overhaul.
Homeland Security Secretary Christie Noem wants to “eliminate FEMA as it exists today and streamline this bloated organization into a tool that benefits Americans who are in real danger.”
Flood insurance programs may be eliminated, experts say.
This will envelop Brahan and around 180,000 other California property owners.
Bulahan, a member of Isleton’s City Council, fears that if the flood insurance program is eliminated, private insurers will file more claims while offering less coverage.
An estimated 7 million Californians live in areas at risk of flooding, of which only about 7% live.
Most of California’s federally supported flood insurance policies cover low-lying Central Valley homes and businesses. Others are for facilities in Los Angeles, San Jose, San Diego, Sonoma and other urban and rural areas.
President Trump needs to rework his emergency and disaster response.
And hundreds of thousands are not left uninsured as a group of experts has begun for California property owners. They say work is urgent.
Nicholas Pinter, a professor at UC Davis, said NFIP plays a key role for lowland homes and buildings that otherwise struggle to secure insurance.
“In the short term, at least in the short term, property that has lost its government-supported policy, NFIP, is in itself uninsured and probably isn’t attractive without it,” Pinter said.
However, the federal flood insurance program is not necessarily gone. Members of Congress proposed a bill to reauthorize it. Pinter said he and other experts were closely watching the law.
The National Flood Insurance Program will expire if not Tuesday, September 30th, and fear that efforts to expand the program could lead to the fight over budget and possibilities.
The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said that if the program is not reapproved, its authority to provide new flood insurance contracts will expire and it will be subject to a sharp limit on its ability to borrow funds from the Treasury Department.
Residential and commercial property owners must purchase flood insurance in the lowland zone designated as “.” The Congressional Research Service said expiration of the program would have “potentially significant” as buying and selling of property in these areas would be “substantially hindered” if flood insurance is not available.
Pinter said it could mean dramatic changes and could potentially dismantle US half-century policies to deal with natural disasters. He compared the potential upheaval to a storm on the horizon. “An incredibly chaotic environment with thunderstorms looming in all directions.”
“This is all scary,” he said. “All basic rules for 50 years are either overturned or at risk of being overturned.”
On the positive side, California said it would be relatively well placed to set up its own state flood insurance program when needed. He and other experts said California needs far less federal aid than other states with more severe flooding.
Nationally, it supports more than 4.7 million flood insurance contracts and offers more than $1.2 trillion in coverage.
Pinter said it could establish its own flood insurance program if California was forced. We currently provide basic fire coverage for homes in areas where wildfire risk is high.
California has been dangerous flooding after heavy rain that hit the coastal town of Montecito in the left Sacramento, the deadly Los Angeles and the coastal town of Montecito in 2018.
Scientists predict that California’s storms and floods will be due to human-induced climate change. The warmer air can hold more water vapor, allowing storms to throw away more rain.
Devastating flooding can put many parts of the state underwater, threatening lives and property on an unprecedented scale, experts say.
The Central Valley state, adopted in 2023, estimated that extreme flooding could cause $1 trillion in damage.
In Athulton, some homeowners have flood insurance, but many do not. Census figures show that around 800 people, the city’s roughly 800, are in poverty.
To ensure flood compensation in Earthleton, the state’s Department of Water Resources provided $100,000 to launch a new one in the town.
The $2.5 million policy is designed to help residents with direct needs in the event of a disaster through the company’s Floodflash, said Kathleen Schaefer, a researcher who secures funding for the pilot program.
However, our community policy does not cover all damages from major floods.
Brahan said there is affordable coverage thanks to the National Flood Insurance Program, and he hopes Congress will continue the program in some way.
Her policy covers up to $250,000 in losses.
When floods struck her community in 1972, FEMA had not yet been created, and Brahan’s parents had no idea about the new federal insurance program. So they relied on loans from small business managers, demolishing damaged walls and raising the foundation when rebuilding their homes.
Brahan said if Trump goes his way and the federal disaster program changes radically, she and many others will need to find other ways to protect herself without resorting to the federal government.
“I hope he will cause confusion,” she said, referring to Trump and his administration. “They’re cutting everything, so they’re going to be like when they went back to the 1930s or when no one had anything.”
