How to Write an RFP for a Nuisance Flood Plan

NOAA expects the Mid-Atlantic to see 15 to 20 high tide flood days between May 2026 and April 2027, in a year when its national outlook sets a record (NOAA). Since October 2020, Maryland has required every local jurisdiction that experiences that flooding to keep a plan for it, update the plan at least every five years, post it online and send it to the Department of Planning (Natural Resources § 3-1018).

A nuisance flood plan documents where and when high-tide flooding disrupts a community, sets the water levels that trigger a response, and lists the policies and projects that will reduce the disruption over five years. You need one if the tide floods your streets. The RFP succeeds when it pays to calibrate thresholds against local reports.

The state scheduled the second round of plans for October 2025 and the third for October 2030 (state guidance).

What this work should deliver

Buy a working plan: calibrated thresholds tied to named actions, a clean record of where the tide has flooded since the last plan, a map of where it will reach next, and a five-year list of projects and policy changes with owners, costs and funding sources. It must also meet the statute’s four duties: develop the plan, update it, publish it and submit it.

Who this is for: coastal counties and municipalities that flood at high tide. State guidance lists the jurisdictions that reported nuisance flooding in 2020, from Annapolis and Crisfield to Ocean City and Chestertown, and recommends a plan for every jurisdiction in the coastal zone, which reaches the 16 counties and Baltimore City that border tidal water. Our Maryland county profiles show each county’s flood exposure, and our flooding and coastal resilience hub collects related guides.

Know the boundaries. The statute addresses tidal flooding, and a town whose streets flood from rain alone needs a stormwater study, though the guidance asks plans to describe rain and river flooding that makes tidal flooding worse. The plan also stops short of design; projects it names still need engineering, such as a living shoreline feasibility study.

Rules and standards to cite

• The statute. Natural Resources § 3-1018 required plans by October 1, 2020, updated at least once every five years, published on the jurisdiction’s website and submitted to the Department of Planning. § 3-1001(g) defines nuisance flooding as “high-tide flooding that causes public inconvenience.” The provisions sit in the Coast Smart subtitle of Title 3.
• State guidance. The July 2024 update from DNR, Planning, MDE, the Maryland Department of Emergency Management and the Critical Area Commission sets a six-step process and nine recommended elements, from sources of flooding and documented reports to vulnerable facilities, underserved and overburdened communities, policy gaps and funding.
• The vehicle. The guidance accepts a stand-alone plan or a related plan that covers the elements. A plan inside a hazard mitigation plan is subject to state emergency management and FEMA review, and you must tell the department you are using it that way; a plan adopted as an amendment to the local comprehensive plan under the Land Use Article goes through a 60-day interagency review under § 3-203(c).
• Hazard mitigation cycle. Local mitigation plans run on their own five-year clock under 44 CFR 201.6. Anne Arundel County folded its 2025 nuisance flood plan into its hazard mitigation plan update (county plan), which FEMA approved through September 7, 2030 (Anne Arundel County).
• Critical Area. The guidance notes that Chapter 424 of the 2024 Laws of Maryland requires local Critical Area programs to address climate vulnerability, including nuisance flooding, and to identify underserved and overburdened communities.
• Future conditions. Use Maryland’s 2023 sea level rise guidance for sea level rise values. At the Baltimore gauge it gives 1.18 feet above 2005 levels by 2050 at the median and 1.6 feet for low risk tolerance, so require the consultant to say which value drives which map.

The vehicle choice is the sleeper decision: St. Mary’s County states that its 2025 plan is not a plan as defined in the Land Use Article and that, once approved, administrative updates don’t need re-approval (St. Mary’s County). A plan folded into a hazard mitigation plan inherits that plan’s review, and its schedule, which may not line up with the state’s October dates.

Sample scope of work

Adapt the bracketed items. Tasks 2 and 3 separate a useful plan from a compliant one.

1. Team and vehicle. Decide the vehicle first; it sets the review path.

The Consultant shall convene the planning team named by the [County], review the 2020 plan and related plans, and recommend in a memo whether to meet the requirement through a stand-alone plan, the hazard mitigation plan or the comprehensive plan, with the review steps and timeline for each.

2. Event record. State guidance for 2025 added recent weather, tidal stage and precise coordinates to the older fields.

The Consultant shall compile every documented flood event since [2020] from MyCoast Maryland, 311 and 911 records, road closure logs and public works reports into one geospatial database recording date, time, event type, extent, damage, estimated cost, access impacts, recent weather, tidal stage and coordinates, and shall set a standard for staff to keep it current.

3. Threshold calibration. Neighboring gauges differ: St. Mary’s County puts minor flooding at 3.5 feet above mean lower low water at St. George Creek and 3.0 feet at Lewisetta.

The Consultant shall identify the most representative tide gauge for each flood area, compare documented flood days with gauge exceedances at candidate thresholds using NOAA’s historical flood day tools, and recommend action, minor, moderate and major thresholds, stating the datum for each.

4. Future conditions. Cover both tide and rain.

The Consultant shall map flood areas under current conditions and under [2050] sea level rise values from Maryland’s 2023 projections, and shall describe where rainfall or river flow compounds tidal flooding.

5. Vulnerability. The vulnerability assessment should name specific assets.

The Consultant shall identify critical facilities, roads, utilities and community resources in current and future flood areas, and the underserved and overburdened communities within or near them.

6. Response protocol. St. Mary’s County ties three response levels to required actions, from public warnings to road closures. Our outreach campaign guide covers the warnings side.

The Consultant shall prepare a response matrix that assigns each threshold a required action, the responsible department and the public notice to issue.

7. Policies, projects and funding. Tie the list to the budget. St. Mary’s County aims to have scoping ready for a budget cycle that starts each September.

The Consultant shall review ordinances, codes and the Critical Area program for gaps, and shall prepare a prioritized five-year list of projects and studies with owners, cost ranges, named funding programs and the capital budget year for each.

8. Adoption and submission.

The Consultant shall prepare the draft and final plan, support public review and adoption, and prepare the submission to the Maryland Department of Planning, including the website posting and a one- to two-page cover letter on [County] letterhead explaining what the plan contains, how it meets the law, how it was adopted and where it is posted.

Deliverables to require

• Vehicle memo with review paths and timelines.
• Flood event database in GIS, with a data standard and a staff procedure for keeping it current.
• Threshold analysis by gauge, with datums and the reports used to test them.
• Current and future flood area maps, naming the sea level rise values used.
• Vulnerability tables for facilities, roads and communities.
• Response matrix with actions, departments and public notices.
• Policy gap memo covering ordinances, codes and the Critical Area program.
• Prioritized five-year project list with costs, owners, funding programs and budget years.
• Draft and final plan, cover letter and website package.
• Editable GIS and data files, owned by you.

How to evaluate proposals

This is planning work, so when federal money pays for it, including NOAA funds passed through DNR, score price. 2 CFR 200.320 reserves price-free qualifications-based selection for architectural and engineering services. DNR’s fiscal 2028 flood planning solicitation warns applicants they may get technical assistance from a provider DNR selects instead of a grant, so settle how that would fit before you issue your own RFP.

Ask each bidder to show a threshold it changed after local reports proved the gauge wrong.

Timeline

Work backward from October 2030. If the grant calendar holds, a one-year funded project needs money by October 2029, which means applying in the December 2028 round.

Budget and cost drivers

We found no published Maryland RFP budget for a stand-alone nuisance flood plan. The closest benchmark is DNR’s Community Flood Planning grant, which says requests typically run $40,000 to $100,000 for projects of up to one year, with a $125,000 maximum, paid from NOAA funds for work in the coastal zone. Kent County’s 2025 plan was prepared with a NOAA award.

Plans that move toward design cost more. Annapolis’s $290,499 FEMA grant for Eastport flood mitigation design paid for an impact study, analysis of mitigation activities, a cost-benefit analysis and tidal and weather monitors (City of Annapolis). Our FEMA grant support guide covers that next step.

What moves the price:

• Data cleanup. Years of 311, 911 and road closure records rarely share a format.
• Gauges and flood areas. Each needs its own threshold test.
• Monitoring. Water level sensors or cameras add equipment and maintenance.
• Jurisdictions. A county plan that covers its towns multiplies meetings and approvals.
• Vehicle. Folding into a hazard mitigation plan adds state and FEMA review.
• Project depth. Cost ranges for a five-year list take engineering judgment.

Red flags in proposals

• National Weather Service stages adopted as nuisance thresholds with no test against local reports.
• A rewritten flood chapter with no tidal analysis. State guidance says a hazard mitigation plan must analyze tidal nuisance flooding thoroughly to count.
• No standard or owner for the event database once the consultant leaves.
• Future flood maps with no named sea level rise value or percentile.
• Rain-driven flooding ignored where it compounds high tides.
• A project list with no costs, owners or budget years.
• Gauge names or place names from another jurisdiction’s plan.

How we’d approach it

We would treat residents’ reports as data. In the Annapolis Maritime Resilience Initiative, where we were project manager and engagement partner for Phase I, 18 months of engagement with bilingual materials produced 38 sites of concern named by residents (Phase I report), the kind of ground truth a threshold test needs. Through Council Fire Labs we built Resilient & Ready with the Resilience Authority to rank the projects a plan like this produces and match them to funding; our hazard mitigation plan guide and resilience funding strategy guide cover the adjacent work.