ASM
Surveyors Blamed for Hurricane Losses
Land is worth lots of money. Most people will spend more on securing land than anything else. Hence issues around security of title plague people everywhere, and developing a secure and transparent titling system is one of the most significant jobs land administrators face. but security of title is not just a third world problem. It can confound people in even the biggest economies.
Mistakes by surveyors in the US state of Texas are being blamed for million dollar losses by local landholders. In some cases, peole have lost their homes completely. According to a report in the US professional journal Point of Beginning, the problem came to light when local landholders were flooded in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. Ike was the third most destructive hurricane in the US. Only Katrina and Andrew caused more damage.
It made landfall in September 2008. It killed 74 people in Haiti and 112 people in the US. Thirty-four people are still missing. The damage is estimated at US $24 billion. Damage in Cuba is estimated at US $4 billion, US $200 million in the Bahamas, and US $60 million in the Turks and Caicos islands, according to the online encylopedia, Wikipedia.
Some of the damage in the US was due to flooding, where housing had been built below the Base Flood Level. This is a contour defined by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to correspond to a 100-year flood level. The position of the BFL was fixed by the National Geodetic Survey long ago and marked by concrete and brass monuments.
In the 1980s, FEMA re-measured the contour and found that the flood plain was about a metre above the old marks. It issued a new map, which became the document of reference for insurance companies and other authorities.
But no one told the surveyors, and they didn't ask. They continued to rely on the old elevations. This meant that people who thought their new homes were being built above flood level were actually building a metre below it.
The practical effect was to allow about 20 homes near the small town of LaBelle to be built in the flood plain.
This mattered when Hurricane Ike hit the Texas coast. Not only were these homes below the flood level and wet, they had no flood insurance. To add to the homeowners' nightmare, FEMA would not permit them to rebuild their homes because they were in the flood plain.
So far, the Board of Professional Land Surveying has taken action against two surveyors – Soutex Surveyors Inc. of Port Arthur and Harold F. Locke and Associates of Port Neches. Other surveyors are being investigated for making the same expensive mistake. Moreover, there are currently half a dozen lawsuits filed against Soutex.
Sources at the board say the La Belle anomoly is by no means the only place where the latest FEMA data differs substantially from the old National Geodetic Survey. The board has urged surveyors to take care.
