Rusk County dropped from national flood insurance program by FEMA

FEMA has suspended Rusk County from the National Flood Insurance Program, county zoning administrator CeCe Tesky reported Tuesday

The Rusk County Board of Supervisors voted to adopt the most historically accurate floodplain maps for the county.

Their decision was made after several months of debate between the county, FEMA and Wisconsin DNR over new floodplain maps submitted by FEMA.

"In the end, FEMA would not change their maps in much of the county to more accurately reflect the potential 100-year flood prone area and Rusk County could not accept the harmful impact this would have on property owners," according to a Tesky.

According to the zoning administrator:

In January, Rusk County adopted language indicating that the most “accurate” information will be used for enforcement and FEMA wants the language to say that the most“restrictive” information will be used.

More of this story appears in the Thursday, March 4, 2010, print and on-line editions of the Ladysmith News.