A floodplain is typically a lowland area adjoining a watercourse. At a minimum, the area is subject to a 1% or greater chance of flooding in a given year. The 100-Year Storm is not a storm that occurs once every 100 years.
A floodway is the part of a watercourse which provides most of the conveyance for a flood event. Specifically, it is the channel of a watercourse and adjacent land areas that must be reserved to discharge the base flood without cumulatively increasing the water surface more than one foot above the base flood elevation and without creating hazardous velocities.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has mapped the floodplains of most of the major channels in Bryan. These floodplains are shown on Federal Insurance Rate Maps (FIRM) and are the basis for flood insurance rates. These maps are located in the Engineering Department and are available for review.
