CENTRE — In July, The Post reported on Cherokee County's efforts to enforce regulations pertaining to the Federal Emergency Management Agency's 100-year-flood plain.

The month before, National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) State Coordinator James Meredith had called the county's ongoing effort “one of the best programs I have seen in Alabama.”

Earlier this month, the much-hailed program finally completed its first full survey of the entire county. What it revealed was interesting and surprising, as the head of the program explained to The Post.

“We started at the northern tip of the county,” said Chief Highway Engineer Corey Chambers. “[Assistant Engineer] John Bates went through 10,066 parcels and every structure was looked at.”

Chambers said structures built before the county adopted the FEMA regulations in 1991 are grandfathered. Anything built afterwards that looked as though it might lie inside the flood plain got a much closer look.

“Where we're at right now is that pass has been made over the entire county,” Chambers said. “The only new properties that should be added to the list now will be something that has been built in the last year, since we made the initial pass.”

Chambers said from now on, the process will basically be never-ending in order to make sure the county stays in compliance.

“We're going back through now and checking for new structures,” Chambers said. “This new pass is going a lot faster.”

Chambers said he and Bates use the tax office's sophisticated computer system to locate and identify structures that may lie in the flood plain. Chambers said the Highway Department also has worked out an arrangement with the local Emergency Management office to help it keep track of additional new structures.

“If someone comes into their office to get an address, they have to be signed off on by this office before they can get an address,” Chambers said.

One of the most surprising aspects of the first pass, Chambers said, was how few violations he and Bates actually found.

“We sent out 354 letters of violation, through the whole process,” Chambers said. “That was less than we thought, which is good. Of those, about 80 percent were in areas directly around Weiss Lake.”

Chambers said over half of those violations have already been taken care of, thanks primarily to the willingness most people have to do the right thing.

“We've had 185 property owners to get their property questions cleared up already,” Chambers said. “Either they got us an elevation certificate [proving that the structure in question was out of the easement] or they have made other changes to come into compliance.”

Chambers said many times, the fixes were simple.

“They either installed flood vents or raised a cooling unit, something like that, in most cases,” Chambers said.

Unfortunately, Chambers said, the number of open cases does involve a few easement-violating structures that have “no good solutions.”

“We've got a couple of slab houses lying inside the flood plain,” Chambers said. “We're in contact with the state to try and figure out the best way to proceed on those.”