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ews & Observer(Print Friendly) : http : //www . . ./sunday/front/Story/251362p-238012c . html http :// 152 . 52 . 16 . 193/standing/help/tools/_scripts/friendly -print. cgi 35 Filling the area that drains into a stream with houses on half - acre lots can cause four times as much water to run off the land , said Bill Hunt , a storm water specialist at N . C . State University . Add parking lots , and the numbers rise . A stream will flood 10 times to 20 times as often if the area upstream is fully developed . " It ' s a price of progress , " Hunt said . Flood plains expand Development in the flood plain - - the flat land along streams and rivers - - also magnifies flooding . Houses and shopping centers eliminate places where water would naturally go , forcing it to spread out . Government once did little to control building in flood plains , allowing projects such as Eastgate in 1961 and the old Kmart at Six Forks and Wake Forest roads in Raleigh in 1964 . When governments did enact regulations , the rules were designed to protect people and buildings , not the flood plain . In Raleigh , for example , construction in flood plains remains OK if buildings are elevated above the depth of a 100 - year flood - - the flood that has a 1 percent chance of happening in any given year . The rules provided a second chance to the Kmart property . Crabtree Creek had risen into the store several times over the years . After Hurricane Fran , though , the Kmart stood empty for two years before a Mount Airy company ripped down the building , trucked tons of dirt into the flood plain and built a new shopping plaza on top . The plaza stayed high and dry after Hurricane Floyd last year , but likely contributed to flooding downstream . Today , more than 5 , 000 Triangle homes and businesses carry flood insurance because they ' re in flood plains - - up from 419 in 1990 . Much of the increase was caused by continued building in flood plains . But some has resulted from development , as the increased flow of water caused flood plains to grow . When David Dill ' s house was new 25 years ago , it sat just outside the flood plain of Little Creek in Chapel Hill , overlooking thick brambles and trees that hide the creek . A survey of the property in the mid - 1980s , however , showed the flood plain had risen to the edge of his foundation , forcing Dill to buy flood insurance . Dill teaches public policy at UNC - Chapel Hill and says his students would recognize storm water in town as a " negative externality , " a cost that developers pass on to others . " It places at risk people who originally built in areas that seem to be safe , " Dill said . " The costs are being borne by people who live downstream . " The Durham City- County Planning Department sees the change in its flood plain maps , which show the 100 - year flood zone . The depth of a 100 -year flood rose an average of 3 feet between 1979 and 1996 . In some places , the added depth expanded the flood plain hundreds of feet , taking in houses and streets . Along Northeast Creek , near Pete Schubert ' s house in the Carpenter Fletcher neighborhood , the 100 -year flood rose 10 feet in places . " There ' s water in back yards where there was not before , " said Schubert , a geologist and civil engineer with the Environmental Protection Agency . But across much of the state , federal flood maps are outdated . After Hurricane Floyd , the state government took over and expects to map the entire state by 2005 , at an estimated cost of $ 62 million in state and federal money , said project coordinator John Dorman . The state plans to update flood plain maps in fast - growing regions every few years to account for development . But the maps are snapshots of a moving target . They fail to account for development ' s effect on the flood plains and allow people to build in them unwittingly . " The reality is that by the time all the mapping ' s done and they ' re through the process , it ' s out of date , " said Dave Canaan , director of Charlotte - Mecklenburg County Storm Water Services . Charlotte - Mecklenburg officials are spending $ 1 . 2 million to draw maps that show not only where the flood plain is of 4 11 /27/2000 8 : 54 AM