Few in Red River flood zone have insurance

MOORHEAD, Minn. — As the Red River crept within view of their backyard this past week, Denette and Billy Narum had an extra incentive to pray their sandbags held. Like most people in the path of potential floods, they have no flood insurance.

Fewer than 800 homeowners in the North Dakota and Minnesota communities most threatened by the swollen river hold insurance policies covering flood damage despite a decadelong push by state and federal officials to get people signed up, according to federal records obtained by The Associated Press.

Like the Narums, who bought their home five years ago, many forgo the insurance because they have never seen a historic flood. Others don't want to shell out up to $800 a year for coverage, instead gambling that city dikes will protect their homes.

That leaves residents exposed to huge losses, and they can't count on a government bailout. People without insurance can get limited federal help if their county is declared a federal disaster area, but it's usually in a loan that must be repaid.

"This was never supposed to happen here," Denette Narum said hours before she and her husband evacuated Friday, giving up on their six pumps as water seeped under sandbags topping a permanent levee and water filled their basement.

About 20 percent of Moorhead residents had been urged to evacuate, although most homes are still OK.

Thousands of volunteers reinforced miles and miles of dikes with sandbags as the river rose to record levels.

Even though the National Weather Service said the river appeared to be receding, it was still more than 20 feet above flood stage Sunday and expected to remain that way for days, testing the dikes that have already suffered some breaches.

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reports show that in the besieged city of Fargo, N.D., with a population of 92,000, only 586 homeowners have policies — including just 90 in the area of highest flood risk.

In neighboring Moorhead, a city of 30,000, that number is 145.

In fact, only 4,558 homeowners in the entire state of North Dakota and fewer than 9,000 in Minnesota carried flood insurance as of January, the most recent figures available.

FEMA doesn't require people to buy flood insurance unless they're in a designated flood plain and have a federally backed mortgage.

FEMA and state officials tried to get the message out about flood insurance after the devastating 1997 Red River flood, which submerged Grand Forks, N.D., and caused an estimated $4.1 billion in damage. Only 743 homeowners in Grand Forks now carry flood insurance.

"Memories are short, and people don't remember the 1997 flood," said Butch Kinerney, spokesman for the National Flood Insurance Program, managed by FEMA. "You see it time and time again: People forget the past."