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An aerial view of flooded school buses in a lot, Thursday, Sept. 1, 2005, in New Orleans, a result of Hurricane Katrina.

(AP File Photo/Phil Coale)

Hurricane Katrina exposed the insanity of America’s flood insurance scheme. For decades, taxpayer-backed policies kept premiums artificially low. With insurance rates so cheap, wiped-out home­own­ers could rebuild again and again — despite the increasing risks.

Then came Katrina. Claims after the historic 2005 storm broke the National Flood Insurance Program. Its debt is $25 billion and getting deeper with every storm.

Even before Sandy, Uncle Sam wanted out of the flood insurance business. The solution was the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012, which phases out government-subsidized policies and, over time, forces flood-prone property owners to pay market rates. The first higher bills began arriving last month. In some cases, premiums rose thousands of dollars.

With sticker-shock setting in, some in Congress, including Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), are urging a delay. That’s a reasonable call. Move too quickly and only the wealthy will be able to afford Jersey Shore housing.

Last week, Menendez sponsored a bill to slow down Biggert-Waters — delaying rate hikes up to four years while the Federal Emergency Management Agency conducts an affordability study and devises a plan to ease home­own­ers' pain. The bill would stall rate hikes for primary home­own­ers and recently bought homes, although not for vacation homes or those in the highest-risk zones, where damage is frequent and expensive.

Among Menendez’s concerns:

• Biggert-Waters’ changes were relatively sudden: The law passed in mid-2012, leaving New Jersey’s almost 40,000 subsidized policyholders with little time to prepare for drastic price hikes;

• The accuracy of FEMA’s post-Sandy flood maps, which put thousands more properties into high-risk flood zones and sent insurance rates soaring, has been questioned;

• The Northeast is still recovering from Sandy’s destruction. For many, the immediate worry is rebuilding, not insurance.

Those concerns are valid — especially in New Jersey, where flooding has grown chronic: Post–Sandy, we’re the No. 1 collector of flood claims outside the Gulf of Mexico coast. Eleven flood-related disaster declarations in eight years. Climate change and sea-level rise only heighten our risk.

Menendez’s questions deserve a full hearing before Congress. At a minimum, a Biggert-Waters requirement that home­buy­ers start paying full-market flood insurance rates immediately must go. It’s estimated that every $1,000 in higher flood insurance premiums drops a home’s value by $20,000. That’s crushing sellers in the Shore’s still-weak housing market.

Even Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the law’s namesake, supports a delay. But a four-year timeout goes too far, and could give opponents time to gut the law for good. Ceres, a sustainability-geared nonprofit, has recommended keeping Biggert-Waters on schedule, while offering help to those who show they can’t afford the hikes.

Softening the blow while keeping the fixes on track combines wisdom and compassion.

Its timeline may be flawed, but the law remains sound: Taxpayer subsidies let policyholders underpay for flood insurance for decades. That, in turn, encouraged overdevelopment in high-risk flood zones with little concern for the risks.

The question now is how — not whether — to implement the law. Helping flood insurance stay affordable is reasonable and humane. Continuing to sell taxpayer-backed policies whose premiums don’t come close to covering the damage would be unsustainable and nuts.

We should do everything possible to ease home­own­ers’ pain, without slowing the commitment to disconnect taxpayers from the National Flood Insurance Program before the next Sandy — or, worse, the next Katrina — breaks the bank for good.

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