Is flood insurance required in Slidell?

If you have a federally backed mortgage on a property in a high-risk flood zone, yes. The city's own position is that much of Slidell is low-lying and flat and all properties are potentially at risk. Between surge, Bayou Bonfouca back-flooding and drainage overload, the ways water reaches a Slidell home are not limited to mapped zones.

What is Bayou Bonfouca back-flooding?

It is the mechanism that carries an elevated Lake Pontchartrain into Slidell. When surge or sustained wind raises the lake, water backs up the bayou rather than draining out of it, pushing into low-lying parts of the city. It is why Slidell can flood from lake conditions without the lake physically reaching the neighborhood.

How fast can a flood policy start?

NFIP policies carry a standard 30-day waiting period; some private carriers have a shorter one. A new policy can't be bound once a flood warning is issued.

Slidell, LA

Flood Insurance in Slidell.

NFIP and private flood for Slidell — a city exposed to water three separate ways, and the highest flood-loss market on the Northshore.

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Slidell

What shapes flood insurance in St. Tammany Parish.

Exposed three ways at once

The City of Slidell names its own flood sources directly: hurricane storm surge, back-flooding of Bayou Bonfouca from an inundated Lake Pontchartrain, and localized drainage failure during heavy storms. Because much of the city's land is low-lying and flat, the city states that all properties are potentially at risk and that streets and yards can flood with little or no warning.

Katrina set the benchmark

High-water data from Hurricane Katrina indicates a storm surge of 12 to 16 feet along the northeastern shore of Lake Pontchartrain from Slidell to Mandeville — higher than what was recorded on the western New Orleans side of the lake. The NWS office at Slidell measured 11.63 inches of rain in the same storm.

The loss history shows it

Slidell has recorded roughly 1,030 repetitive-loss structures and about $149 million in paid flood claims — the highest of any municipality in St. Tammany Parish, and many times the totals recorded in Covington or Mandeville.

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