I recently got a phone call from a good friend of mine asking where he could find information on to potential for flooding of a property he was considering purchasing.  I have looked into this in the past for another friend of mine who was looking to by property near Galveston along a bayou who wanted to know the same thing so I was more or less ready to answer.  This is not something my company provides as a service, but I thought I could help out a friend and the information would be at least useful to my clients and could be shared here.

My search brought me to the FEMA web site.  In addition to homeland security information and other disaster related information they have an organized method of searching flood maps.  There are a couple of ways for consumers to look up flood plane data.  It takes a little time to find what you are looking for, and you should have a relatively fast connection if you want to do this quickly, but overall it is pretty efficient and the information interesting.  You can be easily side tracked if you are interested in this subject at all.  The maps are located at: FEMA Floor Maps

Another resource is to have an elevation certification done by your surveyor on the house when you purchase the home.  This is often required when your home is known to exist in the 100 year flood plane in order to determine if the interior elevation is at risk of flooding.  Contact a surveyor for more information on this topic.