The Llano City Council heard a report from a representative of an Austin engineering firm on the new and higher flood plain levels FEMA has established for Llano County and the City of Llano, approved the allocation of funds from the hotel/motel tax to the Llano Visitor Center for the upcoming year and agreed to seek volunteers to serve on a committee to help develop a comprehensive plan for the city on Monday.

Wes Birdwell of the Austin engineering firm, Halff, gave a slide presentation showing the new flood plain levels FEMA has established for the county and city and explained how FEMA had arrived at its conclusions. The new flood plain levels will call for higher costs in flood insurance.

City Manager Finley deGraffenried commented that these studies are much more technical in establishing the new flood plain than the one the city had determined in the past, using the height of the 1935 flood, the greatest flood on the Llano River in recorded history.

“This means the cost of flood insurance will go up later, after the study is done,” he said. “The best advice is if you’re not in the flood plain currently, but the new map places you in the floodplain, you’re better off to go ahead and buy insurance now before the study is final.”

The good news is if citizens buy the insurance now, they could grandfather these rates in place to keep them at the same cost—or very close to it—when the higher insurance rates kick in.

For the full story, see The Journal.