flood zone research for florida

Florida Flood Zone Map Now Available on the MoversAtlas MoveMap!

The MoversAtlas team has been hard at work over the past few months and we are now excited to announce that the move map now has a flood zone map for the state of Florida! The new flood zone feature can be turned on by going to the MoveMap page and then clicking on the Heat Maps section on the left hand side and then turning on the flood zones radio button. Once you have the flood zones turned on you will see an overlay of four different shades of color appear on the map, red being the highest risk and light blue being the lowest risk and then yellow indicating unstudied areas.

flood zones in florida

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The biggest deal with flood zones(besides the possibility of your house being filled with water) are that they are typically reported back to insurance companies and even if it’s not in a high hazard zone the rates can still be much higher than other areas. The flood zones on the MoveMap are geographic areas that FEMA has defined the different level of flood risks.

If you have been in the state of Florida for a while you are probably familiar with the many marshes, wetlands, everglades and other low areas that are wet just about year around. With that said you should remember that the entire state is right at sea level and to a point there are reasons why that some flood zones are important but some do not necessarily need to be worried about.

Flood zones or hazard areas are identified as a Special Flood Hazard Area (SFHA). In essence the SFHA are defined as the area that will be inundated by the flood event having a 1-percent chance of being equaled or exceeded in any given year. The 1-percent annual chance flood is also known as the “100-year” flood, subsequently the .2 percent is known as the “500-year” flood.

The SFHAs are labeled Zone A, Zone AO, Zone AH, Zones A1-A30, Zone AE, Zone A99, Zone AR, Zone AR/AE, Zone AR/AO, Zone AR/A1-A30, Zone AR/A, Zone V, Zone VE, and Zones V1-V30. Moderate flood hazard areas are labeled Zone B and X (shaded) and low are Zones C and X (unshaded) along with Zone D which are undetermined risk areas but still could flood or have higher insurance premiums.

The highest flood zone area is known as a “V-Zone” which is typically first row beach front, this is obvious due to the high winds, possible waves and low areas.

“A” zones are the next most volatile which are subject to rising waters or near lakes and rivers. These areas are also known as high risk and require flood zone insurance coverage. Each letter and numbering distinguish different requirements for building construction and your surroundings.

We hope this information will give you better knowledge of the flood risk of your home, neighborhood, and its surrounding areas. We encourage you to use the new flood zone feature when searching for a new home in Florida so you can have an idea of the risks and potentially higher insurance premiums before you buy your new house! Also, make sure to check out all the other great information and tools on MoversAtlas.com to help make your home search easier!

MoveMap Safety Feature Highlight: Prisons in Orlando Fl

As you may have noticed by now, moversatlas.com helps you to explore your community by including special features such as schools and community amenities on the MoveMap. One of these special features is the safety feature which can help prisons in orlando flyou to locate any police stations, fire stations or correctional facilities in or around your area. Perhaps when you first begin to think about moving to a new city, you research things like schools in the area or recreational activities for the family. You may look at the median household income and explore the possible job market but maybe you forget to look at things like prisons and correctional facilities which can affect the crime rates of a given area. That’s where the MoveMap comes in handy. Click on the Safety button and then check the box next to correctional facilities and watch the purple boxes appear on your map.

Using the map, you’ll notice that some cities such as Oviedo and Winter Park have no prisons of any kind while cities like Orlando have several.  Although that is quite unfortunate for Orlando, it can be very helpful  to use the map in order to identify exactly what kind of facilities are located in your area and how near or far they may be from your neighborhood or local schools or churches. Looking at Florida you’ll notice it has four male-run and two female-run reception centers where inmates are thoroughly evaluated before being sent off to one of the 48 major institutions. Those institutions do not include work camps, juvenile detention centers and work release centers. The work release centers in Orlando for example are a community program that encourages inmates to reintegrate into society by working for their local community and getting paid during the last few months of their sentence. There are of course certain strict requirements leading to eligibility for these types of programs but they are one way of getting inmates to stand on their own, save up some money and try to once again become a part of society.

I hope this article helped bring your attention to some of the specific uses of the site and how the MoveMap can help you in ways you may not have thought of before. Let me also mention that the safety feature can be used to find the nearest hospitals, fire stations, and police stations which can be very beneficial when you move to a new area in case of an emergency!