The Suwannee River Water Management District has completed a flood-risk review of the Santa Fe River Watershed. Residents in parts of Alachua, Baker, Bradford, Columbia, Gilchrist, Suwannee, and Union counties may be impacted by the updated flood maps.
Engineer Mary Diaz says it's time for residents to review the initial maps.
"The great majority of the buildings don't have a change in their base flood elevations, so some would consider that not a major change," Diaz said. "But look at the maps, there are a lot of properties that are going to be in the flood zone now. There are changes in the 100 year flood zone."
Diaz says they want public input now, because it's easier to make changes before preliminary versions of flood-risk maps are made.
The public meetings are from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. on these dates and locations:
- February 21st at the Bradford County Courthouse in Starke
- February 22nd at the James A. Lewis Commission Chambers in Alachua
- February 23rd at the Westside Community Center in Lake City.
Diaz says district employees will be at the meetings for one-on-one conversations with residents about their property.
Residents looking for information on the status of their property, and any proposed changes, can visit the online web map and search by their address. Residents can also visit the virtual meeting room and follow the steps below to review possible changes to their property:
- Visit www.SRWMDFloodReport.com/Virtual
- Scroll to the SRWMD Flood Report tab
- Select the Santa Fe Watershed (ARCGIS), and search for their property address.
- Ensure the “Changes Since Last Effective” layer is turned on for your specific county to see projected changes. Areas in red are new additions into a flood zone; areas in green have been removed from a flood zone.