MAINE MONITOR • August 8, 2025
Early last spring, while still cleaning up the wreckage of devastating winter storms, southern Maine towns began drafting new rules governing how they’d rebuild or develop on stretches of land that were widely inundated months before. The process coincided with the adoption of new federal flood maps and is required by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for participation in the National Flood Insurance Program. After years of back-and-forth between FEMA and local officials, the agency finalized its first flood map updates for Cumberland and York counties in decades. That meant local officials had to update their floodplain ordinances to FEMA standards or risk their residents losing out on federal flood insurance — often a requirement for homeowners with government-backed mortgages who live in FEMA flood zones.