The Ocean Shores City Council unanimously adopted changes and amendments to the city’s flood damage prevention ordinance in an emergency meeting called Thursday night just one day before it faced a federal deadline to enact the revisions.

The ordinance had to be amended by Feb. 3 to ensure citizens having flood insurance will remain covered, according to a copy of the agenda bill that accompanied the call for a special meeting this week. The city estimates there are 593 flood insurance policies in force in the city.

The changes to the flood ordinance (No. 990) and Municipal Code chapter 15.36 were suggested by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the amended document states.

“If the amendments in this ordinance are not adopted by February 3 2017, the community’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) status would be suspended by FEMA, unnecessary paperwork would be required to get the City reinstated, and policies which lapse during the interim could not be renewed,” the document says.

The current policies in force cover property valued at about $166 million.

“For a community of this size, that is a significant amount of coverage and affected individuals,” according to the new document.

“It is incumbent upon the city and in the best interests of its citizens to make the requisite changes, thereby avoiding suspension from the program.”

During the emergency meeting, Mayor Crystal Dingler noted the council had previously signed off on the changes, but FEMA responded that it also had to fully ratify them and put the new ordinance into effect.

“If you don’t, there are dire consequences,” Dingler said. “So we went back with our attorney and went through the ordinance and made changes making it an emergency ordinance …and amending the code.”

The changes bring Ocean Shores in line with areas of special flood hazard identified by FEMA in a scientific and engineering report, “The Flood Insurance Study for the Grays Harbor County and Incorporated Cities,” also dated Feb. 3, and its accompanying Flood Insurance Rate Map.

The Flood Insurance Study is on file at the city clerk’s office at Ocean Shores City Hall, 585 Pt. Brown Ave. NW.

Under the general standards section, when elevation data is not available, applications for building permits “shall be reviewed to assure that proposed construction will be reasonably safe from flooding.”

“. . . Failure to elevate at least two feet above the highest adjacent grade in these zones may result in higher insurance rates.”