In August 2005 the Turtle Creek subdivision of Eastern St. Tammany Parish took a direct hit from Hurricane Katrina. There were trees down everywhere, but none of the homes flooded.

“We had no water line in my whole yard,” said resident Rod Maidlow.

But three years later Maidlow discovered the new FEMA maps changed his flood zone from “c” to “a.”

Having your flood zone change from “c” to “a” affects you in a couple of different ways. First, your homeowners insurance will now probably require you to have flood insurance. The cost of that flood insurance, in flood zone “c,” is roughly $325 a year. In flood zone “a,” it's a whole lot higher than that.

“To not have water in your yard, and then be considered a flood hazard – that doesn't make sense,” Maidlow said.

“It doesn't seem fair at all.  I mean, to sit there and take a flood insurance price in the 300's, and now you're going to put it over 1300 dollars, for each individual homeowner, because you're going from flood zone c-preferred to a-e. It's just – I can't understand that.”

And neither could Maidlow’s neighbors. So a group from Turtle Creek is pitching in to hire a land surveyor to fight FEMA.

“The homes that are here have never really flooded, ever,” said land surveyor Sean Burkes. “It's just a matter of proving what the actual elevations are. I expect, probably, a very high success rate of homes that are going to be above the FEMA elevation of 13 feet.

Burkes and other surveyors are very busy right now, and they expect that to continue.

“It's not the kind of busy that we would like to have, but it is definitely going to be busier, that's for sure,” Burkes said.

Hiring a surveyor is not cheap, but for many a land surveyor is the only person who can prove FEMA is wrong. A large chunk of Eastern St Tammany Parish goes from zone “c” to zone “a” in the new FEMA flood maps. 

Parish leaders say to fight that change, you have to educate yourself.

“Find out exactly if you are in a flood zone. Some areas, it's going to be, your neighbor across the street may not be, so you need to exactly find out where you are. Then you need to do your homework,” said Alan Pelegrin with the parish’s flood zone office.

The first step is checking those maps online.

“Cross your t's, dot your i's. Get on the FEMA website, see what's required, get that information together,” said building inspector Ken Wortmann. “We're under the gun here. We need to get this in by Jan. 29.”