Sarasota County has rolled out a more user-friendly way to search proposed new flood risk maps, making it easier to determine which properties are among the 42,700 being added to high risk flood zones. The new search function addresses a major source of frustration with the maps.

Using a link on the county’s website, property owners can plug in their address and see their current flood zone and whether it is changing. The information is important because flood insurance is mandatory for structures in high-risk zones in order to obtain a mortgage, and there are also tougher construction standards for such properties.

Property owners had expressed “consistent” complaints about how difficult it was to navigate the draft flood maps put out by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Desiree Companion, the county’s point person for the map revision. The FEMA maps have no search function for individual properties and do not include property lines, making it difficult to determine whether the new high-risk zones are touching certain properties. So county mapping experts took the FEMA information and overlayed it onto local property records. “It’s wonderful,” Companion said. “Just quick, fast, you can see the old (zone) and the new.” The county’s map revision page also has dates, times and locations for four upcoming public forums on the issue.

Interactive maps can be found here:

www.scgov.net

https://ags2.scgov.net/sarcoflood/

Cold Weather Warning – Feb. 2015

February 19, 2015 by Tim Davis

There is a freeze warning for our area for the night of Feb. 19, 2015. Temperatures may fall to below freezing for a few hours overnight.

Tropical plants are the most sensitive types of plants susceptible to low temperatures. If you have the plants in pots, you may wish to consider moving them to covered porch or carport areas. Frost forms when the plants are exposed to the dark skies above, so moving them to covered areas should protect them.

You may wish to cover in-ground plantings with towels, boxes or other coverings. This will trap some heat and protect the plants from frost. Be sure to remove the coverings the next day when temperatures rise.

A quick recovery of temperatures is expected this week, so the freeze warnings are only expected for one night.

Update on LaCasaROC.com Upgrades — January 2015

January 30, 2015 by Tim Davis

It Just Keeps Getting Better!

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Website Upgrades

submitted by Deb Poe

If you’ve looked at the website in the past few days, you might have noticed a few changes. First of all, you’ll see that the Community Channel tab has disappeared. In its place you will now see Events & Notices. We found that many residents were confused with the existence of two Community Channels and decided to make this change to the website. Comcast Channel 195 will continue to be called our Community Channel. Events & Notices will allow you to see community notices and events at your own pace. [Read more…]