Good heart found at end of paper trail

A while ago I financed a house in the Kokomo area of the Spokane Valley for my kids and their mom.

The Kokomo area has great schools, manicured lawns and a Beaver Cleaver feel to it.

It has something else, too, that was revealed to me after the closing.

It's smack dab in the middle of what the Federal Emergency Management Agency designates as a 100-year flood plain.

It's FEMA's opinion that the area might have more than a Cleaver feel, but actual beavers coming down the streets at any time.

Ordinarily I'd laugh it off with something like, "My first clue should have been that surfboard I saw on 24th," but when my mortgage company told me that FEMA designation means a retroactive charge of $1,200 per year for flood insurance, I misplaced my sense of humor.

I started with gathering information from a helpful lady at the Spokane County engineer's office. She had maps, plots, and probably notes from the Lewis and Clark expedition to prove that indeed the designation was true.

My first thought, geographically challenged as it may have been, was "Gee, does the mighty Columbia flow up Dishman-Mica? I hadn't noticed that before."

It turns out the threatening body of water is one Chester Creek. If you go on a scavenger hunt behind Dishman-Mica and Eighth Avenue, you might find it.

The FEMA study itself was actually done years ago, before the sewers were put in, and other stormwater management measures had been taken.

In fact, the county feels the area no longer deserves the flood designation and it has appealed to FEMA for a new study.

The Catch-22 is that FEMA says there is no money for a new study, yet at the same time they insist VA-financed homeowners keep paying the insurance premiums.

At this point, the mortgage company began screaming in those high- C notes that only really good opera singers and mortgage companies can hit.

FEMA's next move was to insist that instead of paying monthly for the insurance, I pay the entire amount up front.

The mortgage company began accepting the normal monthly payment and applied it to the insurance, not the loan.

Soon, the threatening letters began.

The helpful lady at the county engineer's office offered a solution. amazingly enough some red tape called a Letter of Amendment. This letter grants a flood exemption on a property-by- property basis. I was given some maps showing homes that had been granted this exemption.

Being a highly motivated engineer, I armed myself with the latest technology to aid my search for the lucky recipients of the highly coveted letter.

With a computer database, a handheld GPS and a copy of the completed works of Sherlock Holmes, I was able to determine that an exemption had been granted to the house right next door.

Gleefully, I told FEMA they granted the exemption to the house next door; this on a street that's so consistently flat that Stanley could use it to test levels.

Just as gleefully, or so it seemed, FEMA replied that it didn't matter. They told me I needed to pay to have my own engineering study done - and that, oh, by the way, the rules for the study had recently been changed, more than tripling the cost of a study.

About this point, the mortgage company billed me for another year of flood insurance, and stopped accepting mortgage payments, claiming I was in default.

The background music had to be the Volga Boatman as their representative taped a foreclosure notice to my kids' door.

I figured I had just one move left. I wrote a personal letter to the head of the California banking conglomerate that owned the mortgage and overnighted it to him.

Something had changed, perhaps a result of Sept. 11, and I found a bank president who wanted to be compassionate and kind.

Somehow the same company that turned me down previously for refinancing suddenly found me eligible.

Prayers were answered. The house was saved for my kids.

We don't merit the kindness of others or last gasp miracles. We just plug away, and sometimes luck out and happen to be in the right place at the right time. We often can't even pay back the kindness.

How do I help a bank president?

All we can do is pass that kindness on. This is my first step in helping others, by working toward a neighborhood-wide review of the Kokomo flood plain designation.

Copyright 2001 Cowles Publishing Company
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.