Five large “Historic New Castle” signs (30 x 60 inches in size) will be installed on state highways Routes 13, Route 273, 141 and 9 South leading into town. Three new signs will be located at Hares Corner, one on Route 9 South to replace an existing smaller sign (with removal of two other old signs at same location), and one will replace an existing green sign at the junction of Routes 141 and 273. In addition, there will be a smaller sign on Route 273 directing traffic towards Delaware Street.

The signs are funded by the Historic New Castle Alliance through a Community Economic Development Grant the organization obtained through New Castle County in 2012. The City and numerous nonprofit organizations including local museums supported the grant application. The New Castle Way Finding Project will also fund parking signs to minimize congestion, pedestrian way finding planning/signage, professionally produced trails/attractions map, bike racks plus efforts to enhance business signage guidelines. These signs, maps, racks and guidelines will benefit visitors, residents and businesses.

Based on visitor feedback and information obtained from visitor centers, visitors to New Castle need better directions and signage to guide them to our city. At the request of Jean Norvell representing the nonprofit Historic New Castle Alliance (HNCA), DelDOT surveyed major highway routes leading to New Castle. DelDOT is installing standard green directional signs at state expense. However, the brown “Historic New Castle” sign designed by DelDOT in accordance with their standards required outside funding through the New Castle Way Finding Project Grant.

The New Castle Planning Commission approved sign placement on February 25th. DelDOT will fabricate and install the signage at locations by April.

The City of New Castle, Delaware (pop. 5,285, $4.9M budget, 45 f-t employees, 3.1 sq. mi.) is a unique and extremely historic and picturesque community situated on the Delaware River, about 15 minutes south of Wilmington and 45 minutes south of Philadelphia. The City Council is seeking a City Administrator/Public Services Director. Note this is a combined CAO/Department Head position. Major current and upcoming projects include working with State and Federal agencies on reconstruction of three City dikes and working with the National Park Service on development of a management plan for a new Delaware National Monument being established with its headquarters located in downtown historic New Castle.

Candidates are required to hold at least a Bachelor’s Degree with a minimum five years’ experience. The salary is negotiable and shall be determined in accordance with the successful candidate’s experience and qualifications. City services include administration, finance/HR (budgeting, tax collection, A/P, payroll), police, public services (public works [solid waste collection, road and park maintenance], building, planning, zoning, code enforcement). Supervisory skills plus experience in negotiating and grant writing required. Appointed by, and reports to, five-member City Council (staggered terms). Send résumé and cover letter, including salary history and requirements, in an envelope marked “Administrator Application” to 220 Delaware Street, New Castle, DE 19720; or send via email to: mdelaney113@newcastlecity.org

FEMA manages the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). This Federal Government program makes flood insurance available to residents in communities which meet certain criteria, including the City of New Castle. Maps created by FEMA include the Special Flood Hazard Area, which is the area that has a 1% or greater chance of flooding in any given year.

When FEMA maps flood hazards in a community or county, two products are produced:

• a Flood Insurance Study (FIS) report; and
• a Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM)

An FIS is a narrative report of the community’s flood hazards that contains prior flooding information, descriptions of the flooding sources, information on flood protection measures and a description of the hydrologic and hydraulic methods used in the study.

A FIRM illustrates the extent of flood hazards in a community by depicting flood risk zones and the Special Flood Hazard Area, and is used with the FIS report to determine the floodplain development regulations that apply in each flood risk zone and who must buy flood insurance.

FIRMs for New Castle County are being revised using the latest technologies and the most current data so residents, homeowners, business owners and community officials may understand the local flood risk and keep people and property safe from floods.

Large printed color draft maps can be viewed at the Public Services Department at the Trolley Barn at 900 Wilmington Road. For more information go online to the above Web site, call the FEMA Map Information eXchange (FMIX) at 1-877-336-2627, or locally contact New Castle City Building Official Jeff Bergstrom at 322-9813.

As the City receives new information from FEMA, that will be publicized to City residents through this newsletter, the local newspaper and on the City Web site at NewCastleCity.Delaware.gov.

New maps reflect greater flood threat

Written by Jeff Montgomery and Molly Murray The News Journal; Jan. 06
Several times a day lately, Sussex County official Jeff Shockley finds himself plunging into the fine points of flood plains, prompted by calls from residents anxious about big storms and bigger insurance bills.

“There’s been much more interest in the past couple of years, and I think that it’s due to the storms that have hit and missed all around us,” Shockley said. “I get several calls a day from homeowners wanting to know if their property is close to a flood plain, how close they are to a body of water.”

The latest surge in interest has coincided with the arrival of new Federal Emergency Management Agency flood insurance boundary maps, slated for public review in coming months. Driving the map revisions, federal and state officials said, is a need to improve badly outdated risk boundaries, reset minimum building heights and better inform residents and agencies about insurance and planning needs.

In tidal areas, the updates also reflect sea-level rise threats certain to grow in coming decades, officials have said.

The new flood-hazard outlooks are based on expected flooding during present-day storms with a 1 in 100 chance of happening. Those water levels could become everyday events by the end of the century, scientists say, if current sea-level rise scenarios are realized.

“There’s talk about sea-level rise and the effect it’s going to have on us,” Shockley said. “It’s definitely opening our eyes here, and we are more worried about the construction out there that’s being done and has been done.”

Draft maps already are in circulation for some nontidal areas in all three counties – from the Red Clay and Appoqunimink watersheds in New Castle County to upper reaches of the Nanticoke River in Sussex County.

Proposed new maps for coastal areas of Kent County and Sussex County are scheduled to go to public meetings early next year, with New Castle County maps to follow by spring.

Similar projects are under way around the nation, as FEMA works to comply with a congressional demand for updated and more precise National Flood Insurance Program maps.

The timing couldn’t be better for places like Dewey Beach. The town has been the beneficiary of millions of cubic yards of sand to build storm resiliency along its oceanfront, but its bayside suffered significant flooding during Superstorm Sandy.

And with seas rising, Mayor Diane Hanson said it is likely that flooding will only grow worse with time.

Even now, without a hurricane or nor’easter, the ends of some bayside streets routinely flood during high tides, she said.

What municipal officials are trying to determine is whether storm drains have collapsed or are now lower than sea level, making them less effective. The other possibility is that rising seas are beginning to cause more persistent flooding problems, she said.

“If it is sea level rise and not infrastructure, they’ll have to raise their houses up,” the mayor said. “We’ve got to deal with reality here. It saves their houses, but if there is an emergency, how are we going to get there?”

Results of the new mapping project are critical for land and building owners in all coastal and waterside areas. The maps also affect emergency planners and local governments.

FEMA and regulators use the maps to determine flood risk and to recommend minimum building elevations for new construction or substantial rebuilding of existing structures. Banks, mortgage companies and insurers use the same maps to set flood insurance rates.

In January, Hanson will ask the municipal planning commission to tackle guidelines for future construction. These guidelines would likely help homeowners plan for sea-level rise, she said.

The end result for all residents of the town could ultimately mean lower flood insurance premiums, she said.

“Ever since Katrina, they have been skyrocketing,” she said.

Assessing threats Delaware’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control already has sponsored two well-attended meetings for Red Clay and Appoquinimink watershed residents in New Castle County, but public awareness remains spotty statewide.

South of Milford, Ashley R. Malandrino said that she was unaware of the new map or it’s potential affect on her Cedar Creek Landing neighborhood, which lies west of Del. 1.

FEMA’s draft map raises the recommended first-floor elevation in Malandrino’s part of the neighborhood by a foot, to 10 feet above sea level – despite its considerable distance from the bay. Existing buildings are unaffected by the requirement, unless large-scale reconstruction or replacements are involved.

“I haven’t been following it,” Malandrino said. “No one here has been affected by flooding. They say it’s a flood zone, but it doesn’t come up that high.”

At least not yet.

About 5 miles of farmland, marsh and sparsely developed property separates Cedar Creek Landing from Delaware Bay. But the subdivision gets its name from the nearby tidal waterway that ebbs and flows through multiple direct and indirect bay connections.

High tides and surges find their way deep inland by way of a regular inlet north of Slaughter Beach, as well as several ever-widening connections with tidal marshland at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge.

Malandrino said Sussex County did require the building’s first occupied floor to be raised by several concrete blocks at the time of its construction to meet the 9 foot “base flood elevation” currently used by FEMA, insurers and local governments.

“I will admit that when it rains, our ground can get pretty squishy,” Malandrino said. “During that storm [Sandy], I was walking in from my backyard and my foot sank in shin deep.”

In tidal areas, FEMA’s Delaware maps will for the first time identify “limit of moderate wave action” boundaries, the farthest inland point where both flooding and waves of 1.5 feet or more are likely during major storms.

Present-day maps take waves fully into account only in so-called V-zones, or “coastal high hazard” areas, where waves of 3 feet or more are likely.

The new “LiMWA” classification emerged after FEMA officials noted that waves of 1.5-3 feet also caused major damage during Hurricane Katrina’s crossing of the Gulf Coast. Federal officials plan to encourage voluntary local government use of the same building restrictions for LiMWA property as now apply to the most tightly restricted coastal high hazard areas.

“It’s not a huge area, but it runs up and down the coast,” Shockley said. “I think it would be a great idea to incorporate that into our maps. We would have to run it through the County Council to have it adopted into our [flood plain] ordinance.”

In Joy Beach, an edge-of-the-water community on the west side of north Rehoboth Bay, longtime resident Joseph A. Faulkner said he had yet to hear about FEMA’s proposed maps or the reason his home was drawn inside the LiMWA area. Current flood rules, he said, already have increased the cost of life on the bay, from high insurance rates to a requirement to raise an addition on his house a foot higher than the rest of the original structure.

“We’ve never had any water inside our house or garage, but our community certainly has had water come in,” Faulkner said. “We get some pretty good storms here.”

Necessary updates

New Jersey is well along with a similar FEMA map update, but that process was interrupted by Superstorm Sandy – with FEMA determining that “the known flood risk has changed” as a result of tidal surges and water levels witnessed during that late October disaster.

Agency officials rushed out “advisory” flood boundary maps recently “to show a more current picture of flood risk” when issuing rebuilding guidance. Flood heights were boosted in some areas by as much as five feet.

In Delaware, more than 25,000 flood insurance policies are currently in effect around the state, although tens of thousands more inside flood plains are eligible but go without.

“I really think that property owners are going to be better served by these maps, because they accurately show the parts of the property that are flood prone,” said Michael S. Powell, program manager for DNREC.

Some Delaware maps now in effect are based on decades-old data, Powell said, while others are being amended to reflect a recent Army Corps of Engineers study of flood potential wave heights in the Chesapeake Bay, Delaware Bay and Atlantic coast of the Delmarva Peninsula.

The new maps make a wide range of changes in the boundaries and classifications of flood zones and the estimated “base flood elevations” of property – the assumed height of water during the peak of a “100-year storm,” or a storm with a 1 percent chance of occurring in any year.

Use of aerial land-mapping radar during the last decade has revolutionized flood plain studies, Powell pointed out, allowing more-detailed assessment of flood hazards and consequences that often were crudely estimated in the past.

In some noncoastal areas, Powell said, “there were watersheds that had never had a flood plain study done, even though FEMA had mapped a flood plain.

“They were horrendous. They were taking farms that had high ground into the flood plain, but there was no significant risk.”

Crude maps often put the expense and burden on property owners to sort out actual risks when seeking permits or insurance, Powell noted.

In other areas, such as portions of Stein Highway in Seaford, current flood plain maps omit large tracts of land regularly hit by flooding along tributaries of the Nanticoke River.

High stakes

Although FEMA has taken Superstorm Sandy’s high-water marks into account for New Jersey’s map update, Delaware narrowly missed what officials have said would have been a devastating blow. Without clear proof of higher risks, flood plain map development will go forward in Kent County and Sussex County without midcourse changes, Powell said.

“We do not believe that’s going to happen in Delaware, because the hurricane in Delaware didn’t show any area where the maps are just blatantly insufficient,” Powell said. “If the storm had taken some of the tracks that we heard it might take, like coming ashore on Delmarva, we would have had an unimaginably different concern.”

Yet DNREC Secretary Collin P. O’Mara said climate change and sea-level rise make it more likely that flood insurance maps will need revision more frequently than the five- to 10-year schedule now contemplated by FEMA.

Scientists have estimated that sea levels worldwide will increase at an accelerating rate in coming years because of global warming, rising by 5 to 6.5 feet before the end of the century. That rise could permanently flood as much as 11 percent of Sussex County.

FEMA’s new maps give a hint of the stakes.

Along the heavily developed Long Neck peninsula, west of the Indian River Inlet, new water-level and wave estimates show that an expanse of wave-tossed water up to a half-mile would isolate the easternmost third of the area in the event of a major hurricane or storm.

By 2100, that would become an everyday occurrence, based on worst-case forecasts for global warming and sea-level rise.

In places like Dewey Beach, which front the ocean but back up to Rehoboth Bay, there is the potential of flooding from both the ocean and the bay – a destructive combination that occurred during the March Storm of 1962 and the Jan. 4 Storm of 1992. Sandy caused extensive flooding and damage on the bayside, even though oceanfront buildings were largely spared.

To the west of the Indian River Bay at Oak Orchard, some homes sit on a bluff above the river, but others, like the apartment building where Richard Dondarski once lived, experienced flooding with several inches of water.

“I moved out because of Sandy,” Dondarski said.

A chef at the Serendipity Restuarant nearby, Dondarski said the business had three to four inches of water inside but was fine because the owners kept coming in to check on it and sweep the water out.

Up the road, as the ground rises higher above the river, Dan Lawruk, said he has had no issues with flooding – even with Sandy.

His home is elevated three cinder blocks high above the ground, he said.

But sometimes it is the unexpected storm with just the right wind that can catch you by surprise, he said.

“Worst I remember was a nor’easter two years ago,” he said. “They [the news media] didn’t even cover that storm.”

Contact Jeff Montgomery at 678-4277 or jmontgomery@delawareonline.com.

Contact Molly Murray at 463-3334 or mmurray@delawareonline.com.

Some weeks ago, the State contacted the City and submitted an application requesting a minor subdivision be approved involving the Court House, Sheriff’s House and the property known as “The Green.”

For the City process, the Historic Area Commission (HAC) needed to approve setbacks for the proposed subdivision in the historic area. HAC granted that approval, as submitted on plans from the State, on December 14.

The next step required review of, and recommendation from, the Planning Commission (December 17), for- warded to City Council (December 18), concerning the parcels proposed for subdivision. At that meeting, the State asked that its application for a minor subdivision be tabled. Its reasoning was that State and Federal representatives would have added time to provide information to City residents about the possible transfer of ownership of the Sheriff’s House from the State to the National Parks Service. This was also discussed at the special City Council meeting on December 18, however no action was taken due to the matter having been tabled.

For some years, in discussions about a new National Park for Delaware, the Sheriff’s House has consistently been proposed to serve as the Headquarters for the Park, and that plan remains valid. State and Federal government representatives are continuing negotiations on how the arrangement will work with that building and if, in fact, a transfer of ownership will occur.

Two segments of a public forum are scheduled at 2 and 6  p.m. on Monday, January 7 at the Court House. The forum format will allow citizens to stop by to speak with State and/or Federal officials and get more information about this topic. Interested persons may also, at any time, contact Josh Magarik, Projects Director for U.S. Senator Tom Carper, at (302) 573-6291, or send email to Josh_Magarik@carper.senate.gov.

A short time after the December 18 City Council meeting, Senator Carper’s office requested the Planning Commission and City Council again schedule special meetings in January, after the public forum, so that the minor subdivision application could be reconsidered. Those meetings are both scheduled at 6 p.m. at Town Hall, as follows: Planning Commission, Monday, January 14 and City Council, Tuesday, January 15.

http://www.deldot.gov/public.ejs?command=PublicNotice&id=4578

The Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT) invites the public to attend a public workshop on Tuesday, January 15 at William Penn High School from 5:15 to 8 p.m. The workshop will focus on two walking and biking trail projects within and near the City of New Castle.
The Route 273 Trail project proposes to construct a bicycle and pedestrian trail along Route 273 (Frenchtown Road and Delaware Street) from the Farmers Market to near 10th Street in the City. The proposed improvements will connect to the existing New Castle Heritage Trail and the existing Industrial Track Trail. Construction is tentatively scheduled to begin in 2013.
The Churchmans Road Trail Study will present alignment alternatives for extending the existing trail along Churchmans Road (near Airport Road) farther east along Churchmans to Route 273, eventually connecting to the Route 273 Trail. This is a study only; final design and construction are not funded yet.
The workshop will be at the High School cafeteria, 713 East Basin Road, New Castle. Members of the public are invited to attend any time between 5:15 and 8 p.m. Attendees will have an opportunity to review display materials and provide comments.
Any person having special needs or requiring special aid, such as an interpreter for the hearing impaired, should contact DelDOT one week in advance. Mail comments to DelDOT Public Relations, P.O. Box 778, Dover, DE 19903; or submit via email: dot-public-relations@state.de.us. For further information contact Public Relations at 1-800-652-5600 (in DE) or 302-760-2080.

Paper surveys were included along with the December MSC utility billing. Survey recipients are encouraged to complete and return the surveys no later than the deadline of January 11.

In lieu of submitting a paper survey, respondents may complete the survey online, by the January 11 deadline, by clicking on the link below:

http://surveygoldplus.com/s/D856CE1A16424E0C/46.htm