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Old 06-20-2010, 11:10 PM
 
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I plan to move to Danville and would like to find a small house (low maintenance) within a walk of shops. I will avoid the floodplain and would also like to avoid the busy streets from hospital commuters. Could you suggest potential areas to browse for homes?

Using the online web sites, I found a home near the river and one nearer the hospital. I was concerned the river area has parts with many rental homes, the area will eventually flood, and that the older homes have an unforeseen problem, such as paint quality or inability to retain heat.
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Old 06-21-2010, 10:10 AM
 
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Flood of record at Danville is around 32 feet (1972). Sounds like much of Danville is protected by levees up to 34 feet. Of course, as we know from New Orleans, levees can fail. So as long as you are by the river, there is always some risk of flooding out.

Here is a page by the National Weather Service which includes flood impact statements at various levels (scroll down). I'm not sure where to find a flood inundation map for the various levels, and I'm not sure how those things are made when you have a levee in place. Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service: State College: Susquehanna River at Danville


There's also an older thread about this here .http://www.city-data.com/forum/pennsylvania/393544-what-flooding-situation-danville-pa.html
This thread says you could try FEMA for flood inundation maps.
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Old 06-21-2010, 11:23 PM
 
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Thank you for the reply, Davros. I was able to view the flood map by searching at this site: FEMA Map Service Center.

It appears that some of the downtown portions near the river (and possibly other waterways) are in flood zones A or B. However, some portions are in zone C. Zone C designates a region above the 500-year flood level. Others are outside these zones altogether, as I interpret the map. I know that calculating a "true probability" of flooding is difficult, but these provide regions which are presumably used in purchasing a house and in buying flood insurance.

If I found a house in zone C that met my criteria, but I was unable to find a similar house outside the zones, then I hope to consider zone C. I don't have enough information yet to evaluate whether zone C is a reasonable place to buy.

I could certainly include these zones as a criterion in purchasing a house, but I would consider a small risk of water problems if the house met other criteria, such as proximity to shopping.

It would be nice to have a house downtown. I wonder whether other areas, such as near the hospital, are near to downtown but have other drawbacks. Examples are busy roads or high turnover of neighborhood residents (i.e., tenants).
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Old 06-22-2010, 12:33 AM
 
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Huh. For some reason, my link isn't working when I click on it. Oh well, you can get there by deleting one of the two https after clicking on the link.

I suppose deciding whether to live in Zone C requires risk analysis on your part, basically deciding what kind of risk is acceptable to you. Above the 500 year flood sounds relatively low to me, meaning that the chance of such a flood happening in any one year is estimated to be less than 0.2%. Of course, this estimation is not an exact science, since we don't even have 500 years of data. More like 100 years. Good for you for looking into all the data before making a decision. Sorry I couldn't help you more.
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Old 06-22-2010, 08:11 AM
 
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From this page on FEMA's web site: FEMA Map Service Center - in the middle of the page it says "What are you looking for?" and you can navigate by "Flood Maps" by county and municipality, or "MapViewer - Web" by click, pan, and zoom. In some areas where the flood maps haven't been redone on computer yet the "MapViewer - Web" won't work, but for Danville it does.
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Old 06-23-2010, 12:00 AM
 
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Thank you for the replies! I will consider Zone C in the house search.

I also used GoogleEarth to view the town. In the software's options, there are settings to increase the "terrain quality" and "elevation exaggeration". Then, the keyboard combination of "shift" and "down arrow" will rotate the map view toward the horizon instead of an overhead perspective. This view shows clearly where the valley is and where the hills and mountains are located.

Further, the mouse cursor can be moved around the map. At the bottom of the window is an elevation value (labelled "elev"). It reports elevation to 1 foot accuracy, but I don't know if this value is truly accurate to that level. This is another tool to possibly evaluate the relative chance of flooding within a "Flood Zone". Some areas within a Zone are higher in elevation than others. This map could complement the FEMA flood map.

It also shows a nicely rendered and picturesque view of the Valley. This view is further enhanced by these settings: Anisotropic filtering and Antialiasing.
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