Tens of thousands of residents along the Gulf Coast who relied on government flood maps to determ... Residents lacked proper fl

Tens of thousands of residents along the Gulf Coast who relied on government flood maps to determine who must buy flood insurance were caught unaware and uninsured by Hurricane Katrina - victims of outdated information.

A Dallas Morning News analysis of federal mapping data and hurricane damage found that as many as 70,000 homes damaged by Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are in areas never classified as high risk for flooding.

After Katrina left at least 3 feet of water inside her New Orleans home, Gibson said her agent "told me insurance would pay for all the damage only above the water line" because she didn't have flood insurance.

Homeowners with federally backed mortgages must carry flood insurance if they live in areas designated on government maps as high risk for flooding.

Many private mortgage companies do the same, requiring customers who live in defined flood-prone areas to carry a separate flood insurance policy.

Backed by the taxpayer-funded National Flood Insurance Program, flood insurance premiums cost between $400 and $700 a year for a $100,000 house. Coverage for contents is additional.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which oversees the NFIP, has acknowledged that many of the nation's flood maps do not accurately reflect current risks because they don't account for erosion or changes in drainage patterns caused by development.

In fact, that was known 30 years ago, according to Robert Hunter, insurance director of the Consumer Federation of America who directed the National Flood Insurance Program in the mid-1970s.

"Back then, we knew the problem with development. By the time we published a map it was already antiquated," Hunter said. "As time goes by the flood area grows, it doesn't go down."

Flood maps for New Orleans and Bay St. Louis, one of the Mississippi towns devastated by the hurricane, were last updated in the early 1980s, according to FEMA.

The Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2004 required that FEMA also provide better materials to homeowners explaining coverage and the claims process and to establish a formal appeals process by the end of 2004.

But much of New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood was not, so homeowners there were not required by their lenders to carry flood insurance. The premise was that the Industrial Canal levee would protect the area. During Katrina and later Hurricane Rita, the levee ruptured, leaving the neighborhood uninhabitable today.

New Orleans public school teacher Tanya Watson remembers receiving a letter from her insurer saying that she wasn't required to carry flood insurance. That was before at least 8 feet of water filled her Lower Ninth Ward home.

Inside her once-tidy white home, furniture and appliances now lie in a jumbled mess. Her chronologically sorted files are stuck together by globs of brown mold. In an adjoining room, a pile of soaked rubble is all that's left of the lessons she was preparing for her English classes at nearby Alfred Lawless High School.

According to The News' analysis, which compared FEMA maps of hurricane damage and designated flood zones to 2000 census data, Watson's house is in an area defined as "moderate to low risk" for flooding. Even the NFIP Web site shows that.

"They told me that I'll hear from them, but that I have coverage only for wind damage," Watson said shortly after meeting with her insurance adjustor.

In Mississippi, entire cities that hug the Gulf of Mexico shoreline, including Long Beach and Bay St. Louis, were ravaged by Katrina but not designated on FEMA's maps as high risks for flooding.

The fight over insurance coverage there has come down to the definition of what constitutes a flood - an issue that may be answered only in court.

Many homeowners along the Mississippi Gulf Coast contend Katrina damaged their homes and therefore their homeowner's policies should cover them.

A lawsuit in Jackson County, Miss., against Nationwide Insurance and its agent, Fletcher Insurance, argues that the agent told Paul and Julie Leonard of Pascagoula that they didn't need flood insurance and that their homeowner's policy contained "full and comprehensive coverage for any and all hurricane damage, including any and all damage proximately."

When the water began rising near his home in Lakeshore, Miss., Stanley Durning and his family swam onto the roof, bringing with them their two ferrets, two snakes, a dog, a cat and a rabbit.

Lakeshore was not a designated high-risk flood area on FEMA's maps, and Durning said he had never seen such flooding in the 25 years he had lived there.

He estimates that his damage will exceed $30,000 for the contents of his house alone. But he considers himself lucky because, as a construction worker, he can do his own repair work.

A flood-prone area, as shown on FEMA maps, is defined as having at least a 1 percent chance of flooding in any given year. The percentages are based on a sophisticated computer modeling of factors such as elevation and drainage patterns.

FEMA plans to use data collected during Katrina, such as high water marks, to update its maps in the Gulf Coast region and to re-evaluate its policies.

"But dams and levees fail," said Hunter, the former NFIP director. People living in such areas should be required to have insurance, he said, but should be able to pay a lower rate.

The maximum coverage available under the National Flood Insurance Program for a residence is $250,000 for the structure and $100,000 for contents. Homes that sustain more than $250,000 cannot be insured to their full replacement cost. Renters can insure their furniture and possessions for up to $100,000.

According to FEMA records, more than 4.4 million residential flood policies, totaling more than $737 billion, were in force across the country when Katrina hit in late August. About 20,000 communities nationwide have taken flood-prevention measures to be eligible for the program.

In six Louisiana parishes hit hardest by Katrina, nearly 254,000 policies were in force in an area with about 484,000 homes, according to government data. In the three hardest hit Mississippi coastal counties, about 21,000 flood policies were in force among the more than 136,000 homes. And in Alabama's two coastal counties, nearly 206,000 households hold about 26,000 flood insurance policies. Not all parts of those counties and parishes are flood zones.

National flood insurance studies show that only 10 percent of those who live in high-risk flood areas buy flood insurance if they're not required to do so.

Stephenie and Bubba Bosarge said their flood insurance did not cover the total loss of their home and oyster processing business. A Katrina-driven storm surge flattened their business, the nearly 3,000-square-foot home of Stephenie's mother next door and the Bosarge's three-bedroom house in Coden, Ala., less than a mile from the Gulf Coast.

The Bosarges had $40,000 in flood coverage on their home, as required for a second mortgage they took out in 2001 to revamp their oyster business. After she received their flood insurance check, Stephenie Bosarge said she signed it over to their lender to cover the balance on the second mortgage.

They had $25,000 worth of flood coverage on the oyster shop, where they employed 50 workers. That money, too, will go to their lender to cover what they owe.

For now, they have a place to stay. Both Nelson and the Bosarges recently received FEMA trailers after living with relatives for more than a month. But they aren't sure what the future holds.

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