North Royalton, Ohio -- Mike Prorock can see the two sides of the flood plain debate that's rippling across Cuyahoga County -- literally.

From where he stands in his Stuart Court yard, Prorock can see his own home and a handful of others at the end of the North Royalton cul-de-sac. All of them have been removed from the flood plain area on recent maps after being included for decades.

But Prorock can also look to the southeast, toward Broadview Heights, to see nearby subdivisions where residents are having precisely the opposite experience. They're finding out that their homes are now in a flood plain -- and they are now required to buy flood insurance for their homes.

The reason: A small stream, a tributary to Chippewa Creek, once ran through the fields where Stuart Court was built in the 1970s, so old Federal Emergency Management Agency maps properly showed the undeveloped parcels had been in the stream's flood plain.

But the developer who built the homes re-located the stream and contoured the land to accommodate the homes. That forced the stream and storm water to drain instead toward Broadview Heights.

But either no one updated the maps or told federal officials at the time -- leaving Prorock and his neighbors to pay for flood insurance for decades, even though they were never really in the path of any likely flooding.

At the time, they figured it was cheaper than paying $1,200 to have the property resurveyed and fighting FEMA over the flood plain designation.

"Prior to the flooding of the Mississippi Delta and before Katrina, flood insurance was cheap," he said. "So I bought the insurance, but I was always worried about it because I was probably going to sell the house someday."

Eventually, Prorock and friends decided to challenge the flood designation.

"We were just gathering the information a few years ago when we found out they were re-drawing the maps," he said. "So we sat back and let FEMA do what it was supposed to do."

When FEMA officials looked at aerial maps and more current hydrological maps, they corrected the flood plain mix-up: Prorock and friends were out and the Broadview Heights streets were in.

The switch didn't surprise the city or the neighbors, said Broadview Heights Engineer Eugene Esser.

"Those homes down there flooded pretty badly in 2006, so we believed they were in the flood area already," Esser said. "When the mapping was being done over the last few years, we held public meetings and notified people.

"Some of them were actually glad to be in a flood plain, though, because it meant they would qualify for federal help more easily since they now had to be insured."

In the end, Prorock said he and a half dozen neighbors at the end Stuart Court are glad to be high-and-dry -- and even happier the feds know it.

"We could feel bad about it -- the neighbors who came out ahead while others down the way are in the flood zone now," Prorock said. "But then again, we were paying flood insurance for years when we shouldn't have been.

"This is the way it works when they finally get it right."