Rapides Parish, LA Environmental Rules: Flood Elevation Requirements (2026)

Section 10½-6 sets the technical basis for the parish's flood regulations. Subsection (a) adopts by reference the FEMA Flood Insurance Study for unincorporated Rapides Parish, dated June 1982, along with its flood insurance rate maps (FIRMs) and flood boundary-floodway maps and any later revisions. Subsection (b) goes further and adopts, on the Rapides Area Planning Commission's recommendation, the specific base flood elevations (BFEs) tied to Community No. 220145 across a named list of FIRM panels, several of which carry a March 3, 1997 revision date.

Those adopted BFEs are what Section 10½-17 later measures against: new and substantially improved residential structures must have their lowest floor at or above the adopted elevation, and nonresidential structures must either match it or be floodproofed to it. Where BFE data has not otherwise been mapped, Section 10½-13(8) directs the RAPC to pull the best available federal, state, or other elevation data so a permit can still be evaluated. The parish code does not layer an additional local freeboard margin on top of the FEMA number; the adopted BFE itself is the operative floor.