City officials are concerned not only about much higher insurance rates, but also about severe limits on waterfront development.

"The V-zone designation is a very restrictive designation," says Penny St. Louis Littell, Planning Director for the city of Portland.
"What FEMA would allow, absent a variance or some other exception, would be fishing or lobster shacks and no real development of any kind."

Littell says the new map would also prohibit any existing buildings on the harbor from being rebuilt should they burn down. The effect on the local economy would be devastating, says First District Congresswoman Chellie Pingree. "Given this economic climate in particular, it seemed like it would place a huge economic burden on much of the southern coast."

Pingree, along with Maine Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, wrote to FEMA in August urging it to reconsider the map, which they say is based on inadequate data. Portland planning director Penny Littell agrees. She says much of the data used by FEMA was based on information that was not specific to the harbor area, and that, she says, has led to some inaccurate conclusions.

"Just an example, they used a 71 mile-per-hour wind speed in the harbor, and that would be a one-hour duration. We don't get an hour's worth of 71-mile-per hour winds here in Portland harbor," Littell says.

Littell also points out that the harbor has, for a long time, been used by ships as a safe haven when a major storm hits. "Any of the cruise ships, or the oil tankers, the coastguard vessels come into Portland harbor. They get out of the storm by seeking safety in our port, and so the wave action that's been predicted by FEMA is really not there."

But Littell says now, after a meeting with federal officials last week, FEMA may be coming around. She says she's now more confident that a new, more favorable flood map will eventually emerge. "I think our engineer did a great job in impressing upon them the need to go back and take another look at the information they used in their study."

"The city raised a number of good points and FEMA will be reviewing engineering documentation that the city now has," says FEMA spokesman Dennis Pinkham.

He says FEMA's mapping experts are in the midst of a massive billion dollar plus effort to remap most of the U.S. coastline using updated technology. And they have a set pattern for gathering data, using a series of prescribed weather points.

"In many instances, the information may not be exactly pertinent to a particular area," Pinkham says. "Now if someone like the city of Portland comes and says, 'Well, you were gathering your scientifc information from this point in the area, and we have other validated scientific information from another point, then of course we look at that."

But that could pose a problem, says Littell, for municipalities forced to pay the cost of gathering that additional data, if they're not happy with FEMA's conclusions. "It's expensive to go out and hire experts argue on your behalf," she says.

The Portland City Council has hired an engineering consultant at an undisclosed cost, to make its case to FEMA. U.S. Representative Chellie Pingree feels that's unfair. "I'm just concerned that the city of Portland had to spend the money and supply the data. This seems like it should have come from FEMA in the first place. We think it's an unfair burden for the city of Portland."

Spokesman Dennis Pinkham says FEMA hopes to have a new preliminary flood map out by the end of the year, in time for a 90-day public comment period due to start in January. The final map, he says, now won't be ready until June 2011.