The FBI is interviewing employees at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, following NBC News' report that the agency has made unusual changes in federal flood insurance maps that benefited owners of oceanfront condo buildings and million-dollar homes with a history of flooding, according to sources familiar with the investigation. NBC News recorded 500 instances in which FEMA, which oversees the flood insurance program, has remapped waterfront properties from the highest-risk flood zone, saving the owners as much as 97 percent on the premiums they pay. NBC News first reported the changes -- found from the Gulf of Alaska to Bar Harbor, Maine-- on Feb. 18. According to NBC News' analysis, the map changes shift the financial burden for the next destructive event onto the neighbors of these wealthy beach-dwellers — and ultimately onto all American taxpayers.
