STRONGSVILLE, Ohio -- Hundreds of Cuyahoga County residents will face increased home insurance premiums, lower property values and reduced chances of selling their homes because of revised flood maps.

"It's like living in a toxic waste dump," said Duncan Cooper, a resident of Willow Wood Drive, off Boston Road in Strongsville. "If you're looking to buy a home, are you going to buy one that's listed in a flood zone? Of course not."

In simple terms, Cooper and his neighbors, as well as others affected, could pay between $500 and $2,000 a year more on their home insurance premiums. But their greatest fear is having their property tainted by being on a flood map.

The residents are struggling with a problem communities across the country have faced in the past few years: An update of Federal Emergency Management Agency flood maps has thrown thousands of property owners into flood zones, even though they seldom face any chance of rising rain waters.

From Washington state to Long Island, residents have criticized the agency's work and wondered how it came to conclusions that some say are arbitrary.

Some area homeowners are still trying to understand how -- after decades without any flooding problems -- their properties have now been deemed to be part of flood zone. Affected Strongsville residents said information from their city council is just beginning to trickle down.

Some federal flood links

Page offers more detail about flood insurance.

Find some flood-zone data in complex map viewer.

Cooper said he believes the new standards for the map are more tightly structured. Today, any part of a piece of property touching a flood zone would be included on the map. In the past, just the building needed to be in the flood zone.

Federal law requires that property owners with a mortgage have flood insurance if their land is in a flood zone. Several county residents learned of the issue in the past few weeks when their banks notified them of the changes to their premiums.

The agency does not track the number of property owners affected. An agency website that sought to provide residents information by zip code offered little help. But interviews with residents and others suggest the number is in the hundreds, if not higher.

It also is uncertain how many property owners in the county dropped off the maps, something the agency has suggested has happened across the country.

In Cuyahoga County, the remapping work began in 2004. Congress wanted to give communities and residents more accurate information on flood plains. The process continued until officials sent letters to affected residents in 2009.

In the last few months, councils across Cuyahoga County adopted the new maps. John Licastro, the mayor of Bratenahl and the leader of the county's mayors and managers association, said there has been little discussion about the issue, as he said he doubts the numbers would be high.

He said he believes that new technology has improved the way the federal agency tracks those added to the flood map. Published reports have said the tools have captured information that has been unavailable in past years, such as elevation levels.

While that may answer why they are now on the map, it offers little comfort to those affected, like the neighbors on Willow Wood Drive in Strongsville.

Cooper said the fact that his neighborhood is on the new flood map will torpedo any chance of selling his home. His neighbors agree.

"This will be a red flag that people will run from," said Bob Furlong, one of Cooper's neighbors and a real estate agent. "Home disclosure information is huge."

The neighbors off Willow Wood Drive are near a tributary of the east branch of the Rocky River. Cooper said FEMA bases its determination of a flood zone on a 1 percent likelihood that a major flood will occur in any given year. But he stressed that there is no data that suggests it has happened in the past.

Residents say the tributary seldom rises to a level of concern, let alone one that would worry people about flooding. Many plan to appeal the inclusion on the map, saying they are considering hiring a surveyor to look at a number of issues.

"We want to know what determines why my house would be in a flood zone while a house three doors up the street isn't," Furlong said. "I'm going to go all the way on this. I think this is arbitrary. I've had the house 24 years, and we've never had a problem."