St. Charles city officials estimate that about 500 people poured into the St. Charles West High School cafeteria Wednesday to peruse revised flood insurance maps for the city and try to figure out how the changes might affect them.

Many people interviewed said they couldn’t understand why the Federal Emergency Management Agency maps included their homes in a flood-risk zone - in particular, the 100-year flood plain - for the first time.

If that designation isn’t removed by the time the maps are made final next year, they could be required to buy flood insurance - if they still have mortgages - and face new rules on what improvements they can make to their residences.

“I was surprised,” said Mary Orf, a semi-retired housekeeper who lives on Fourth Street in the Frenchtown neighborhood near the Missouri River. “I’ve been there 13 years and (flood water) has never come near me.”

Winfried Tasker, a telephone company lineman, said his home near Frenchtown wasn’t hit by water even during the historic flood of 1993.

At one point, during brief comments by City Director of Administration Michael Spurgeon, one man yelled: “Good luck to anyone in the flood zone trying to sell your home.”

Bob Franke, an engineer with FEMA, said in a telephone interview that the new maps incorporate information from an Army Corps of Engineers study of flood levels in several Midwestern states. The study was completed in 2004.

He said the revisions also reflect the fact that the agency has determined that an earthen enbankment along Boschert Creek north of Highway 370 doesn’t meet the requirements for an accredited levee.

Part of the Frenchtown area, with about 260 homes and various businesses affected, is the focus of many changes on the St. Charles portion of the new maps.

Various owners of homes near creeks in other parts of the city also would get new flood-plain status; some of them expressed concern as well.

One was Bob Vance, a retired guidance counselor. He said he lives up a hill more than a block from Boschert Creek, a location that makes it difficult for him to understand how flash-flood water could ever reach his property.

Officials with St. Charles city government, which sponsored the open house, asked residents and business owners with such points to fill out forms that will be considered when the city files an appeal of the proposed new maps.

“We’re not satisfied” with the FEMA proposal, Spurgeon told the crowd. “We want further data to show why this is necessary.”

Spurgeon and Mayor Patti York said the city is considering filing a lawsuit to try to block the new maps and hiring an engineer to research the FEMA information.

I counted roughly 200 people on hand at the open house when it started about 4:30 p.m. David Gipson, the city’s planning manager, estimated that by the time the event ended around 7 p.m., 500 or so people had stopped by at one time or another.

The city will host a similar event next Wednesday (July 15) also at St. Charles West High, again running from 4:30 to 7.

Gipson said the FEMA maps for the city were last changed in 1996. Citywide, about 3,000 properties with about 2,100 owners are inside or within 100 feet of a newly-declared flood plain under the proposed maps.