JACKSONVILLE, Fla — Jacksonville is listed in the top 30 for cities in America with the most properties affected by flooding and the city ranks 2nd for greatest relative growing substantial flood risk.
That’s according to new data from FloodFactor.com. The website, created by research and tech nonprofit First Street Foundation, provides the public with information on flood risks. Researchers and data scientists have been working alongside scientists in several fields for three years on this database.
“We basically did this because the data didn’t exist," said Matthew Eby, Executive Director of First Street Foundation. "No one was able to understand their personal flood risk today and also no one knew how that would change in the future based on the changing environmental factors."
"The idea that not only are you making the biggest financial investment of your life, you are doing that with blinders on for today’s risk," Eby said.
On the website, you can search by address, zip code, city or state. Their research shows Jacksonville has more than 29,000 properties with a 1 percent chance that floodwaters will reach their home in 2020 and in the next 30 years, this number jumps to more than 47 thousand because of the changing climate.
Most flood data comes from FEMA, but this flood model found 70 percent more properties with a known risk of flooding.
Flood Factor shows data for 2020 and predicts the changes for the next 30 years which Eby says is the typical mortgage period.
Jacksonville residents are no strangers to flooding. Not only do neighborhoods face regular flooding from storms, but hurricanes have previously created extreme flooding in areas.
Many remember the devastation from Hurricane Irma in 2017 as water filled downtown Jacksonville as well as San Marco.
"It's certainly the worst I’ve seen it," said city council member LeAnna Cumber. She represents the San Marco neighborhood.
She says some businesses never recovered from Irma's flooding. “Irma was a very different situation. I’m not sure there are many solutions to combat another Irma," Cumber said.
San Marco is one of the neighborhoods that Flood Factor lists as having an extreme risk for flooding. The clusters of areas with extreme risks for flooding all have one thing in common: their proximity to water.
"The idea is not now we know the risk and we can’t do anything. It’s now we know what the risk is and so we can do something to protect it," Eby said.
Cumber is doing something now to protect her constituents. She says she works with the Director of Public Works to borrow pumps from JEA before a hurricane hits.
Cumber says they are installing a second pump station by Lasalle Street, but since that will take a while she says they’re looking at the infrastructure to see what they can reconfigure to improve drainage.
As improvements are made, buildings are built, and the climate changes, Eby says they’ll release quarterly updates with new data on FloodFactor.com.